RFC1669 - Market Viability as a IPng Criteria

Network Working Group J. Curran

Request for Comments: 1669 BBN

Category: Informational August 1994

Market Viability as a IPng Criteria

Status of this Memo

This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo

does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of

this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

This document was submitted to the IETF IPng area in response to RFC

1550. Publication of this document does not imply acceptance by the

IPng area of any ideas eXPressed within. Comments should be

submitted to the big-internet@munnari.oz.au mailing list.

IntrodUCtion

In an open marketplace, adoption of new technology is driven by

consumer demand. New technologies that wish to succeed in the

marketplace must provide new capabilities or reduced costs to gain

consumer confidence. Internetworking technologies can be

particularly difficult to deploy and must provide a correspondingly

high return on investment. In order to determine market viability of

new internetworking technology, it's necessary to compare the

required deployment effort against the potential benefits as seen by

the customer. "Viability in the Marketplace" is an important

requirement for any IPng candidate and this paper is an attempt to

summarize some important factors in determing market viability of

IPng proposals.

"Pushing" Internetworking Technology

It has been asserted by some that the adoption of a single IPng

protocol by the computing industry would generate general acceptance

in the networking industry. There is ample evidence to support this

view; for example, some of the today's more prevalent networking

protocols gained initial market acceptance through bundling with

computer operating systems (e.g. IP via UNIX, DECNET via VMS, etc.)

It should be noted, however, that this approach to technology

deployment is by no means assured, and some of today's most popular

internetworking software (Novell, etc.) have thrived despite

alternatives bundled by computing manufacturers. Given that IPng

will have to compete against an well established and mature

internetworking protocol (IP version 4), promotion of an IPng

solution by computer system manufacturers should be recognized as

highly desirable but not sufficient on its own to ensure IPng

acceptance in the marketplace.

Can IPng compete against IPv4?

Given the large installed base of IPv4 systems, computer system

manufacturers will need to continue to provide IPv4 capabilities for

the foreseeable future. With both IPng and IPv4 support in their new

systems, users will be facing a difficult choice between using IPv4

and IPng for internetworking. Existing IPv4 users will migrate to

IPng for one of three possible reasons:

New functionality not found in IPv4

IPng needs to provide functionality equivalent to that currently

provided by IPv4. It remains to be seen whether additional

functionality (such as resource reservation, mobility,

autoconfiguration, autoregistration, or security) will be included in

the base specification of any IPng candidate. In order to provide

motivation to migrate to IPng, it will be necessary for IPng

proposals to offer capabilities beyond those already provided IPv4.

Reduced costs by using IPng

It is quite unlikely that migration to IPng will result in cost

savings in any organization. Migration to IPng will certainly result

in an increased need for training and engineering, and hence

increased costs.

To gain connectivity to otherwise unreachable IPng hosts

For existing sites with valid IPv4 network assignments, connectivity

is not affected until address depletion occurs. Systems with

globally-unique IPv4 addresses will have complete connectivity to any

systems since backwards-compatible communication is required of new

IPng hosts.

From the perspective of an existing IPv4 site, IPng provides little

tangible benefit until IPv4 address depletion occurs and

organizations reachable only via IPng appear. Given the absence of

benefits from migration, it is uncertain whether a significant base

of IPng sites will be occur prior to IPv4 address depletion.

Sites which are not yet running IP have little motivation to deploy

IPng for the immediate future. As long as IPv4 network assignments

are available, new sites have an choice to use IPv4 which provides

the sufficient internetworking capabilities (measured in

functionality, cost, and connectivity) for many organizations today.

Given the parity in IPng and IPv4 capabilities, IPv4 (as a more

mature internetworking protocol) is the more probable choice for

organizations just now selecting an internetworking protocol.

Once IPv4 address assignments are no longer available, sites wishing

to participate in the global Internet will have a very difficult

decision in selection of an internetworking protocol. The current

suite of IPng proposals cannot provide complete internetworking

between IPng-only sites and IPv4-only sites since (by definition)

there will be insufficient space to map all IPng addresses into the

IPv4 address space. As none of the proposals currently call for

dynamic network address translation (NAT), it is inevitable that

IPng-only sites will have Access to a partial set of IPv4 sites at

any given moment.

Internetworking services which do not allow complete access to the

global Internet (IPv4 and IPng in the post-IPv4-address-depletion

world) are clearly not as valuable as services which offer complete

Internet access. Sites which are unable to oBTain IPv4 network

assignments will be seeking Internet services which can provide

complete Internet service. Additionally, some sites will have

"privately numbered" IPv4 networks and will desire similar Internet

services which provide transparent access to the entire Internet. The

development of network address translation devices and subsequent

services is highly likely under these market conditions.

Summary

No internetworking vendor (whether host, router, or service vendor)

can afford to deploy and support products and services which are not

desired in the marketplace. Given the potential proliferation of

network address translation devices, it is not clear that IPng will

secure sufficient following to attain market viability. In the past,

we have seen internetworking protocols fail in the marketplace

despite vendor deployment and IPng cannot succeed if it is not

deployed by organizations. As currently envisioned, IPng may not be

ambitious enough in the delivery of new capabilities to compete

against IPv4 and the inevitable arrival of network address

translation devices. In order to meet the requirement for "viability

in the marketplace', IPng needs to deliver clearly improved

functionality over IPv4 while offering some form transparent access

between the IPv4 and IPng communities once IPv4 address depletion has

occurred.

Security Considerations

Security issues are not discussed in this memo.

Author's Address

John Curran

BBN Technology Services, Inc.

10 Moulton Street

Cambridge MA 02138