Presuming IPv4 (was Re: Routing of 2002::/16)

[Michel Py]

>> From: Chuck Yerkes [mailto:chuck+6bone@snew.com]
>> This may be a reasonable assumption at the moment, but in the
>> context of an experimental and experimenting network (the
>> 6bone) and, more, in the interests of preparing for a far more
>> 6-aware world, I'd like to presume instead that there are many
>> 6-only networks with no 4 network.

Dave's original text had the word "customer". Today, and for a while, the best advice you can give to a customer is that they need both v4 and v6. V6 only networks  are good for experiments, but I would not run a business on them. Would you be able to read this email today if you were v6 only? Would you risk loosing customers that have transition mechanism problems for the pleasure of being v6 only?

Let's be serious. The 6bone is a great place to test, but the day when Microsoft, Cisco, eBay, Amazon, Etrade, Travelocity and Cnn are moving their web sites to v6 only is years away. And I don't envision an Internet where you can pretend that Windows does not exist any time soon either.

In the meantime, the reason I was mentionning that it would be preferable to have the customers have their own 6to4 solution is this:

In the next three years, you will update the software that runs the 6to4 relay many times. People that have been doing this for a while will agree that there is a good chance that one of these many upgrades will introduce a new bug that will disable the 6to4 relay.

If your design is that your customers rely on this 6to4 relay, when you break it, all the customers are screaming at the same time, which experienced network administrators try to avoid.

On the other end, if customers have their own 6to4 relays on their own routers, not only they will not break all at the same time, but when they do break, it's not your fault.

Michel.