Subject: Re: US Defense Department formally adopts IPv6

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 05:52:24 -0700

In response to John's RFC 942 point:

Reading the document the gist of the argument appears to be 'there is no
real technical difference between the protocols that is significant enough
to decide the issue, but OSI is what everyone else is planning to use'.

So actually I would say it was the opposite of the ADA situation, quite
likely given the date even an attempt not to make the ADA mistake a second
time (ADA was a train wreck predicted long in advance).

OSI came far closer to succeeding despite the problems in the design than
many here appear to want to admit. Without classless addresses the IPv4
space would have run out in 1992. It is ironic that X.500 is one of the few
parts of the stack left, if X.500 had ever worked we might all be speaking
ASN.1...

		Phill

---

From: "Al Arsenault" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 08:44:12 -0400

Phill,

    Spot-on. And in fact, that's what appears to be happening with the IPv6
message.

    In the document that became RFC 942, DOD's expert panel says:

    - TCP/IP was custom built for DoD requirements; it's not useful for the
commercial world.

    - The commercial world is going to use ISO protocols; that decision's
been made. And the commercial world does things so much better, faster,
cheaper, etc. than the DoD.

    - DoD can't afford to have its own custom solutions that aren't
commercially available and won't interoperate with commercial or other
Government systems.

    - Therefore, DoD must ditch TCP/IP and hop on board the
commercially-driven OSI train.

    That "DoD must use commercially-provided solutions for everything"
viewpoint became popular in the early 1980's.  It went out of vogue for a
while, and came back in the early-to-mid 90's, with Gore's "Re-inventing
government" stuff.  It's still very popular with the current administration.
Reading the actual transcript of Stenbit's press conference, you see things
like:

...
"...that talks about the fact that we're going to insist that acquisitions
and programs that move on after the first of the next fiscal year, which is
October, will be IP 6-compatible. So, we need to build the inventory of
systems that have procured software and hardware on a scale which is
actually slower than the replication that happens in the commercial world --
they usually sort of roll over all of this stuff every two years or so. We
tend to be a little bit slower than that. So, we're trying to give ourselves
five years to go through what is, in effect, an obsolescence criteria here."
...
"I think it's an important validation of the work that's gone on,
absolutely, outside the Defense Department, although we have participated in
the forums; but that the Internet community is moving forward; they've
recognized these problems -- those are the kind of problems we have. We're
comfortable that they're moving toward solutions, however they come out,
that we'll adapt our systems to."
...
"We're actually -- we're actually taking advantage of the commercial
movement that's going on. The commercial industry has its own transition
difficulties. There are people who have vested interest in staying in the
past because that's how they made their money, building this little patch on
IP 4 that makes something go away and makes people happier in their service.
There are other people who would like to get this stuff all into a standard.
I think the real pressure here on the commercial side, at least as I
understand it -- and this is not -- I don't go out and -- this is not how I
spend my life -- the Europeans really need more addresses. So I think the
actual push to move from IP 4 to IP 6 will not be driven by us. Our
announcement today, and our execution on this policy will move it along
because we are a large buyer of Internet-compatible devices and
communications. But I think it's the commercial people that will actually
cause this trigger to be pulled, and we're assuming that will happen in a
time scale which is consistent with what I have just been describing."

...

"So this is actually a pretty intrusive change. But as I say, it's not
driven by the DoD's use. It is, in fact, driven by commercial uses. And we
have basically made the choice that we're going to -- we're comfortable
enough with the progress that's been made in the commercial world that we're
going to stick with that, however it evolves, because it will change over
time, but we're going to change with it because our suppliers are going to
change with it to meet that standard."

...

(The questions and answers about "IPv5" are sort of funny.)

Anyway, the point is, this is yet another case of a high official saying
"gee, we have some real problems.  And the commercial world is claiming
they've solved these same kinds of problems already, with this neat new
technology called (XYZ).  So that must be the answer - we have to migrate to
(XYZ) as well."

How well it gets implemented in practice is TBD.  It'll largely depend on
whether there are any viable commercial products that actually do IPv6 well
enough to get the job done.  Because fundamentally, Government folks just
like commercial folks have to make the bits flow and get the job done.  The
people who have to do the job every day will soon figure out whether this is
top-level smoke, or something real.  If IPv6 products are dogs that stand in
the way of getting the job done, this policy pronouncement will be good only
for the bottom of the bird cage in two years or less.  Oh, there will be
some high-level posturing and "work" done on it, but that's only to make the
top-level policy people feel better.  The people who have to get the job
done will do so.

                    Al Arsenault