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Time for IPv8? (was Re: shim6 @ NANOG)

  • From: Roland Dobbins
  • Date: Sun Mar 05 22:21:03 2006 
On Mar 5, 2006, at 6:59 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:


Far from it, but, there are lessons to be
learned that are applicable to the internet, and, separating the
end system identifier from the routing function is one we still seem
determined to avoid for reasons passing my understanding.
And this is the real answer, of course.

There were two fundamental design decisions made back in the Olden Days which continue to exert a strong and in many cases quite negative sway over this entire set of inter-related issues:

1. Utilizing the endpoint identifier in the routing function, as
Vince Fuller and you (among others) have stated, and

2. The ships-in-the-night nature of the TCP/IP protocol stack.
This latter design decision is a big part of the reason TCP/IP
has been so successful to date; however, we find more and
more kludgey, brittle hacks to try and provide some sort
of linkages for purposes of enforcing policy, etc. The
irony is that these attempts largely stem from the unforeseen
side-effects of #1, and also contribute to a reinforcing
feedback loop which further locks us into #1.

Given the manifold difficulties we're facing today as a result of these two design decisions (#2 is a 'hidden' reason behind untold amounts of capex and opex being spent in frustratingly nonproductive ways), perhaps it is time to consider declaring the 'Limited- Deployment IPv6 Proof-of-Concept Experiment' to be a success, take the lessons learned (there are a lot more unresolved and potentially problematic issues than those mentioned in this thread) into account and get started on IPv8.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Roland Dobbins <[email protected]> // 408.527.6376 voice

Everything has been said. But nobody listens.

-- Roger Shattuck