Question about 6to4

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin List-Petersen [mailto:martin at airwire.ie] 
> Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 10:27 AM
> To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> Cc: ipv6-ops at lists.cluenet.de
> Subject: Re: Question about 6to4
> 
> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> > 6to4 isn't a transition mechanism, it's a laboratory 
> experiment that 
> > escaped from the lab and is being supported by a few die-hard techs 
> > who have no understanding of business.  Seriously!!!
> 
> This is unfortunatly where you are going ENTIRELY wrong. The 
> issue is something different.
> 
> Every Windows XP, Vista, 7 box out, every Mac OS X box, that 
> has IPv6 enabled uses either teredo, when it gets a 
> non-public IPv4 or 6to4, when it gets a public IPv4, unless 
> it gets a proper IPv6 address assigned either statically, via 
> router advertisements or via DHCPv6.
> 
> This means, that you have 6to4 and teredo traffic on your 
> network already, if you want it or not.
> 
> This has nothing to do with understanding a business or not. 
> That's the pure and utter fact.
> 
> Ever checked your netflows for proto 41 traffic ?
> 

Your missing the point.  To put it very simply, it is clear in looking
at 6to4 that there is at least equally if not more work involved in
making a 6to4 private relay a supported product offering than just making
native IPv6 a supported product offering.

What OUR goal is, is when that first customer calls us asking
for 6to4 support, we can tell him that we don't support 6to4 because we
offer native IPv6.  Of course, that does not mean I won't reserve the right
to run a 6to4 private relay for my own amusement, (because I am a die-hard
tech after all ;-)) and if customers discover it and are able to make use of
it, great.  Just don't expect support, and also expect that when I
get bored with it, it might go away if it starts sucking my time.

Beyond that, from a business point of view I don't give a rat's ass if
customers we have now are currently running
6to4.  They are doing this to get access to IPv6, and I'm pretty confident
that any of them who are doing this will immediately chuck out that 6to4
stuff when they know they can get native IPv6.

The only possible stumbling block would be is if the router they are using
doesn't route IPv6 natively and only supports 6to4.  But if that is the
case,
then our decision is that they can either toss away the router they have
and get one that supports native routing, whereupon they can get support
from
us, or they can continue to use 6to4 and NOT get any support from us.


Ted