Internet DRAFT - draft-carpenter-v6ops-isp-scenarios
draft-carpenter-v6ops-isp-scenarios
V6OPS B. Carpenter
Internet-Draft Univ. of Auckland
Intended status: Informational S. Jiang
Expires: October 15, 2010 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
April 13, 2010
Emerging Service Provider Scenarios for IPv6 Deployment
draft-carpenter-v6ops-isp-scenarios-02
Abstract
This document describes practices and plans that are emerging among
Internet Service Providers for the deployment of IPv6. They are
based on practical experience so far, as well as current plans and
requirements, reported in a survey carried out in early 2010.
Status of this Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on October 15, 2010.
Copyright Notice
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Survey of ISP experience, plans and requirements . . . . . . . 4
3. Lessons from experience and planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Gap analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8. Change log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Appendix A. Summary of replies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Appendix B. Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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1. Introduction
As is well known, the approaching exhaustion of IPv4 address space
will bring about a situation in which Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) are faced with a choice between one or more of three major
alternatives:
1. Squeeze the use of IPv4 addresses even harder than today, using
smaller and smaller address blocks per customer, and possibly
trading address blocks with other ISPs.
2. Install multiple layers of network address translation
[I-D.nishitani-cgn], or share IPv4 addresses by other methods
such as address-plus-port mapping [I-D.ymbk-aplusp],
[I-D.boucadair-port-range].
3. Deploy IPv6, and operate IPv4-IPv6 coexistence and interworking
mechanisms.
This document focuses on alternative (3), while recognizing that many
ISPs may be obliged by circumstances to prolong the life of IPv4 by
using (1) or (2) while preparing for (3).
The document describes IPv6 deployment scenarios already adopted or
currently planned by a set of ISPs who responded to a technical
questionnaire. Thus, it is a factual record of the responses from
those ISPs. It makes no recommendations; the best choice of
scenarios will depend on the circumstances of individual ISPs.
We consider various aspects of IPv6 deployment: addressing, routing,
DNS, management and of course IPv4-IPv6 coexistence and interworking.
We do not consider application services in detail, but we do cover
general aspects.
The reader is assumed to be familiar with IPv6. The IETF's view of
core IPv6 requirements is to be found in [RFC4294] (currently being
updated as [I-D.ietf-6man-node-req-bis]). However, this does not
give a complete view of mechanisms an ISP may need to deploy, since
it considers the requirements for an individual node, not for a
network as a whole.
[RFC4029] discusses scenarios for introducing IPv6 into ISP networks,
as the problem was viewed some years ago. The end goal described in
RFC 4029 is simply a dual-stack ISP backbone. Today's view is that
this is insufficient, as it does not allow for interworking between
IPv6-only and legacy (IPv4-only) hosts. Indeed, the end goal today
might be an IPv6-only ISP backbone, with some form of legacy IPv4
support.
[RFC4779] discusses deployment in broadband access networks such as
CATV, ADSL and wireless. [RFC5181], [RFC5121] and
[I-D.ietf-16ng-ip-over-ethernet-over-802-dot-16] deal specifically
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with IEEE 802.16 access networks. MPLS-based ISPs may use the 6PE
[RFC4798] mechanism.
[RFC4942] covers IPv6 security issues, especially those that are
specific to transition and coexistence scenarios. Also related to
security, [RFC4864] discusses "Local Network Protection", i.e., how
the internal structure of an IPv6 site network can be protected.
Although not directly part of ISP operations, this topic does affect
the issue of how well an ISP's customers are protected after they
deploy IPv6.
Although the basic IPv6 standards have long been stable, it should be
noted that considerable work continues in the IETF, particularly to
resolve the issue of highly scalable multihoming support for IPv6
sites, and to resolve the problem of IP layer interworking between
IPv6-only and IPv4-only hosts. IPv6/IPv4 interworking at the
application layers is handled within the original dual-stack model of
IPv6 deployment: either one end of an application session will have
dual-stack connectivity, or a dual-stack intermediary such as an HTTP
proxy or SMTP server will interface to both IPv4-only and IPv6-only
hosts.
[RFC5211] describes an independent view of a possible sequence of
events for IPv6 adoption in the Internet as a whole, with direct
implications for ISPs. Its main point, perhaps, is that by 2012 it
will be necessary to regard IPv4 networks as the legacy solution.
2. Survey of ISP experience, plans and requirements
To obtain a view of the IPv6 experience, plans and requirements of
ISPs, a questionnaire was issued by the authors in December 2009 and
announced widely to the operational community. We promised to keep
the replies strictly confidential and to publish only combined
results, without identifying information about individual ISPs in any
published results. The raw technical questions are shown in
Appendix B, and a detailed summary of the replies is in Appendix A.
Note that although the questionnaire was widely announced, those who
chose to reply were self-selected and we can make no claim of
statistical significance or freedom from bias in the results. In
particular, we assume that ISPs with a pre-existing interest in IPv6
are more likely to have replied than others. The results should
therefore be interpreted with some care.
Thirty ISPs replied before the cutoff date for this analysis. 66% of
responses were from European ISPs but large operators in North
America and Asia/Pacific regions are included. Commercial ISPs
operating nationally predominate, with a vast range of size (from 30
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customers up to 40 million). Note that some providers chose not to
answer about the exact number of customers. Nevertheless, it can be
stated that 6 providers each had millions of customers, the next 9
each had more than 10,000 customers, and the remaining 15 each had
fewer than 10,000 customers.
80% of the respondents offer both transit and origin-only service;
27% offer IP multicast service; 80% have multihomed customers. A
very wide variety of access technologies is used: xDSL, DOCSIS,
leased line (X.25, TDM/PDH, SDH), frame relay, dialup, microwave,
FTTP, CDMA, UMTS, LTE, WiMAX, BWA, WiFi, Ethernet (100M-10G),
MetroEthernet/MPLS. Most ISPs provide CPE to some or all of their
customers, but these CPE are often unable to support IPv6.
Estimates of when ISPs will run out of public IPv4 address space for
internal use vary widely, between "now" and "never". Public IPv4
address space for customers is mainly expected to run out between
2010 and 2015, but three or four ISPs suggested it will never happen.
About 20% of ISPs offer RFC 1918 space to customers, and about 40%
use such addresses internally.
60% of ISPs report that some big customers are requesting IPv6.
Predictions for when 10% of customers will require IPv6 range from
2010 to 2017, and for 50% from 2011 to 2020. These ISPs require IPv6
to be a standard service by 2010 to 2015; the most common target date
is 2011. 40% already offer IPv6 as a regular service, although in
general it is used by fewer than 1% of customers. Another 47% of
ISPs have IPv6 deployment in progress or planned. These all plan at
least beta-test service in 2010. Planned dates for regular service
are between 2010 and 2013 (except for one ISP who replied that it
depends on the marketing department). When asked when IPv6 will
reach 50% of total traffic, the most common answer is 2015.
Turning to technology choices, the overwhelming choice of approach
(93%) is a dual stack routing backbone, and the reason given is
simplicity and cost. 40% run, or plan to run, a 6to4 relay as well,
and 17% run or plan a Teredo server. However, 77% of ISPs don't have
or plan any devices dedicated to IPv6. A different 77% don't see
IPv6 as an opportunity to restructure their network topology.
When asked which types of equipment are unable to support IPv6, the
most common answer was CPE (9 mentions). Also mentioned: handsets;
DSLAMs; routers (including several specific models); traffic
management boxes; load balancers; VPN boxes; management interfaces &
systems; firewalls; billing systems. When asked if such devices can
be field-upgraded, the answers were gloomy: 5 yes, 4 partially, 10
no, and numerous "don't know" or "hopefully".
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83% support or plan DNS AAAA queries over IPv6, and all but one of
these include reverse DNS lookup for IPv6.
The ISPs have prefixes ranging from /19 to /48, and have a variety of
policies for customer prefixes. Fifteen ISPs offer more than one of
/48, /52, /56, /60 or /64. Two offer /56 only, seven offer /48 only.
Two wired operators offer /64 only. Mobile operators offer /64 in
accordance with 3GPP, but at least one would like to be allowed to
offer /128 or /126. Also, as many as 30% of the operators already
have IPv6 customers preferring a PI prefix. The methods chosen for
prefix delegation to CPEs are manual, DHCPv6[-PD], SLAAC, RADIUS, and
PPoE.
About 50% of ISPs already operate or plan dual-stack SMTP, POP3, IMAP
and HTTP services. In terms of internal services, it seems that
firewalls, intrusion detection, address management, monitoring, and
network management tools are also around the 50% mark. However,
accounting and billing software is only ready at 23% of ISPs.
Considering IPv4-IPv6 interworking, 57% of ISPs don't expect to have
IPv6-only customers (but mobile operators are certain they will have
millions). Five ISPs report customers who explicitly refused to
consider IPv6. When asked how long customers will run IPv4-only
applications, the most frequent answer is "more than ten years".
Only three ISPs state that IPv6-IPv4 interworking at the the IP layer
is not needed. On the other hand, only three (a different three!)
run or plan to run NAT-PT. At least 30% plan to run some kind of
translator (presumably NAT64/DNS64), but only one felt that a
multicast translator was essential. Among those who do not plan a
translator, when asked how they plan to connect IPv6-only customers
to IPv4-only services, seven rely on dual stack and three have no
plan (one said, paraphrasing, "it's their problem").
Asked about plans for Mobile IPv6 (or Nemo mobile networks), 20% said
yes, and 70% said no, with the others uncertain. A detailed analysis
shows that of the six ISPs who responded positively, three are large
mobile operators (and a fourth mobile operator said "No"). The other
three who were positive were broadband ISPs ranging from small to
very large.
We examined the data to see whether any other differences emerge
between the very large (millions of customers), medium (at least
10,000), and small (fewer than 10,000) operators. However, the range
of answers seems to be broadly similar in all cases. The major
exception is that among the six very large operators, one plans to
use 6PE and DS-lite, and another to use 6VPE, instead of a simple
dual stack. The other large operators and all the medium and small
operators prefer a simple dual stack.
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3. Lessons from experience and planning
This section is assembled and paraphrased from general comments made
in the various questionnaire responses. Any inconsistencies or
contradictions are present in the original data. Comments related to
missing features and products have been included in Section 4.
As noted in the summary above, the ISPs that responded overwhelmingly
prefer a native dual stack deployment. Numerous comments mentioned
the simplicity of this model and the complexity and sub-optimal
routing of tunnel-based solutions. Topology redesign is not generall
considered desirable, because congruent IPv4 and IPv6 topology
simplifies maintenance and engineering. Nevertheless, 6to4 is
considered convenient for cable modem (DOCSIS) users and 6RD is
considered an attractive model by some. Various operators, but by no
means all, also see a need for Teredo. One very large MPLS-based
operator prefers 6PE because it avoids an IPv6 IGP and reduces
operational costs. This operator also sees IPv4 scarcity addressed
by DS-lite [I-D.ietf-softwire-dual-stack-lite] and Carrier Grade NAT,
also acting as a catalyst for IPv6. Another very large operator with
an existing NAT44 infrastructure plans to use 6VPE [RFC4659] and
believes that NAT64 will be similar to NAT44 in support requirements.
Several ISPs observe that IPv6 deployment is technically not hard.
The most eloquent statement: "Just do it, bit by bit. It is very
much an 'eating the elephant' problem, but at one mouthful at a time,
it appears to be surprisingly easy." Other comments paraphrased from
the replies are:
o Despite the known gaps, the tools and toolkits are fairly mature
at this point.
o Managerial commitment and a systematic approach to analysing
requirements and readiness are essential.
o Evangelization remains a must, as it seems that many ISP and IT
managers are still unaware of the need for an IPv6 plan, and are
inclined to dismiss IPv4 depletion as a false alarm, and also seem
unaware that NATs create expensive support requirements.
o Without customers wanting IPv6, getting business backing is very
hard, and IPv6 security and scale was not a focus for vendors
until very recently.
o Operators lack real experience with customer usage of IPv6, and
the resulting lack of confidence causes delay.
Three further quotations are of interest:
"We are planning to move all our management addressing from IPv4 to
IPv6 to free up IPv4 addresses."
"I am actively pushing our larger customers to start testing IPv6 as
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our development has pretty much stopped as we need some real world
testing to be done."
"Customer support needs to be aware that IPv6 is being started in
your network, or servers. We experienced many IPv6 blocking
applications, applications that do not fall back to IPv4, etc. The
most difficult part may be to get engineers, sales, customer support
personnel to like IPv6."
4. Gap analysis
The survey has shown a certain number of desirable features to be
missing, either in relevant specifications, or in many products.
This section summarizes those gaps.
As noted above, numerous models of various types of product still do
not support IPv6:
CPE
handsets
DSLAMs
routers
traffic management boxes
load balancers
VPN boxes
other appliances
management interfaces and systems
firewalls
intrusion detection systems
accounting and billing systems
It is not the purpose of this document to name and shame vendors, but
it is today becoming urgent for all such products to avoid becoming
part of the IPv4 legacy. ISPs stated that they want consistent
feature-equal support for IPv4 and IPv6 in all equipment and software
at reasonable or no extra cost. The problems can be quite subtle:
for example, one CPE with "full" IPv6 support does not support IPv6
traffic shaping, so the ISP cannot cap IPv6 traffic to contractual
limits. Other needs and issues mentioned:
o A specific CPE need is an intelligent prefix sub-delegation
mechanism (ease of use issue).
o Full RA support on LAN side of ADSL CPE.
o PPPoE and RADIUS support. Specifically, global unicast address
assignment for L2TP/PPPoE. Currently the PPPoE client will be
assigned a link-local address, requiring a second step (DHCPv6 or
SLAAC).
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o Simple automatic distribution of DNS server details is essential;
a DNS server option in RA [RFC5006] is wanted.
o ISPs need fully featured DHCPv6, especially since SLAAC does not
allow settings to be pushed out (except for RFC 5006).
o Firewall systems should not use separate IPv4 and IPv6 rules.
o Customer side firewalls/routers which can do 25-100 Mbit/s.
o Gaps in infrastructure security for IPv6 management.
o Gaps in routers' treatment of header options.
o RA-Guard in switches.
o VRRP support.
o PE-CE routing protocols (OSPF and IS-IS).
o Problems using a single BGP session to exchange routes for both
IPv4 and IPv6.
o IPv6 support in all the best open source tools.
Several ISPs also noted that much commercial applications software
does not correctly support IPv6 and that this will cause customer
problems. Also, some operating systems are still shipped with IPv6
disabled by default, or with features such as IPv4-mapped addresses
disabled by default.
Numerous ISPs want a scaleable NAT64/DNS64 product. Other protocol-
related needs are:
o "Getting it right" so that a dual stack client doesn't end up
trying to use the wrong transport to reach a site.
o User-side port allocation mechanisms. UPnP IGD and NAT-PMP can be
used for IPv4, but nothing exists for IPv6 (yet). [Editor's
comment: even though port mapping is in principle unnecessary for
IPv6, a method of opening ports through firewalls on demand seems
necessary.]
Global IPv6 connectivity still has issues; for example ISPs in the
Pacific region may have to obtain IPv6 transit via the USA (a
situation faced by IPv4 operators in Europe about twenty years ago).
Also, there are persistent PMTUD issues in various places on the net,
and a lack of multicast peering.
Finally, there was a comment that real deployment case studies must
be shown to operators, along with multihoming and traffic engineering
best practices.
5. Security Considerations
As a report on a survey, this document creates no security issues in
itself. ISPs did not register any general concerns about IPv6
security. However, we note that about half of all firewall and
intrusion detection products are still reported not to support IPv6.
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Some ISPs expressed concern about firewall performance and about the
need for separate firewall configurations for IPv4 and IPv6.
6. IANA Considerations
This document makes no request of the IANA.
7. Acknowledgements
We are grateful to all those who answered the questionnaire: Pete
Barnwell, Cameron Byrne, Gareth Campling, David Freedman, Wesley
George, Steinar Haug, Paul Hoogsteder, Mario Iseli, Christian
Jacquenet, Kurt Jaeger, Seiichi Kawamura, Adrian Kennard, Simon
Leinen, Riccardo Loselli, Janos Mohacsi, Jon Morby, Michael Newbery,
Barry O'Donovan, Al Pooley, Antonio Querubin, Anthony Ryan, Marc
Schaeffer, Valeriu Vraciu, Bill Walker and those who preferred to
remain anonymous.
The ISPs willing to be named were: AISP, Alphanet, Breedband Delft,
Claranet, E4A, Fidonet, Finecom, France Telecom, Hungarnet, Imagine,
LavaNet, NEC BIGLOBE, Nepustilnet, Net North West, RoEduNet, SWITCH,
Snap, Sprint, Star Technology, T-Mobile USA, Ventelo, and Whole Ltd.
Useful comments and contributions were also made by Mohamed
Boucadair, and others.
This document was produced using the xml2rfc tool [RFC2629].
8. Change log
draft-carpenter-v6ops-isp-scenarios-02: updated summary and
discussion of questionnaire results, deleted material to repurpose
document as survey results only, 2010-04-13
draft-carpenter-v6ops-isp-scenarios-01: added summary and discussion
of questionnaire results, 2010-02-23
draft-carpenter-v6ops-isp-scenarios-00: original version, 2009-10-13
9. Informative References
[I-D.boucadair-port-range]
Boucadair, M., Levis, P., Bajko, G., and T. Savolainen,
"IPv4 Connectivity Access in the Context of IPv4 Address
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Exhaustion: Port Range based IP Architecture",
draft-boucadair-port-range-02 (work in progress),
July 2009.
[I-D.ietf-16ng-ip-over-ethernet-over-802-dot-16]
Jeon, H., Riegel, M., and S. Jeong, "Transmission of IP
over Ethernet over IEEE 802.16 Networks",
draft-ietf-16ng-ip-over-ethernet-over-802-dot-16-12 (work
in progress), September 2009.
[I-D.ietf-6man-node-req-bis]
Jankiewicz, E., Loughney, J., and T. Narten, "IPv6 Node
Requirements RFC 4294-bis",
draft-ietf-6man-node-req-bis-04 (work in progress),
March 2010.
[I-D.ietf-softwire-dual-stack-lite]
Durand, A., Droms, R., Haberman, B., Woodyatt, J., Lee,
Y., and R. Bush, "Dual-Stack Lite Broadband Deployments
Following IPv4 Exhaustion",
draft-ietf-softwire-dual-stack-lite-04 (work in progress),
March 2010.
[I-D.ietf-v6ops-cpe-simple-security]
Woodyatt, J., "Recommended Simple Security Capabilities in
Customer Premises Equipment for Providing Residential IPv6
Internet Service", draft-ietf-v6ops-cpe-simple-security-10
(work in progress), March 2010.
[I-D.ietf-v6ops-ipv6-cpe-router]
Singh, H., Beebee, W., Donley, C., Stark, B., and O.
Troan, "Basic Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge
Routers", draft-ietf-v6ops-ipv6-cpe-router-04 (work in
progress), January 2010.
[I-D.nishitani-cgn]
Yamagata, I., Nishitani, T., Miyakawa, S., Nakagawa, A.,
and H. Ashida, "Common requirements for IP address sharing
schemes", draft-nishitani-cgn-04 (work in progress),
March 2010.
[I-D.ymbk-aplusp]
Bush, R., "The A+P Approach to the IPv4 Address Shortage",
draft-ymbk-aplusp-05 (work in progress), October 2009.
[RFC2629] Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", RFC 2629,
June 1999.
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[RFC4029] Lind, M., Ksinant, V., Park, S., Baudot, A., and P.
Savola, "Scenarios and Analysis for Introducing IPv6 into
ISP Networks", RFC 4029, March 2005.
[RFC4294] Loughney, J., "IPv6 Node Requirements", RFC 4294,
April 2006.
[RFC4659] De Clercq, J., Ooms, D., Carugi, M., and F. Le Faucheur,
"BGP-MPLS IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) Extension for
IPv6 VPN", RFC 4659, September 2006.
[RFC4779] Asadullah, S., Ahmed, A., Popoviciu, C., Savola, P., and
J. Palet, "ISP IPv6 Deployment Scenarios in Broadband
Access Networks", RFC 4779, January 2007.
[RFC4798] De Clercq, J., Ooms, D., Prevost, S., and F. Le Faucheur,
"Connecting IPv6 Islands over IPv4 MPLS Using IPv6
Provider Edge Routers (6PE)", RFC 4798, February 2007.
[RFC4864] Van de Velde, G., Hain, T., Droms, R., Carpenter, B., and
E. Klein, "Local Network Protection for IPv6", RFC 4864,
May 2007.
[RFC4942] Davies, E., Krishnan, S., and P. Savola, "IPv6 Transition/
Co-existence Security Considerations", RFC 4942,
September 2007.
[RFC5006] Jeong, J., Park, S., Beloeil, L., and S. Madanapalli,
"IPv6 Router Advertisement Option for DNS Configuration",
RFC 5006, September 2007.
[RFC5121] Patil, B., Xia, F., Sarikaya, B., Choi, JH., and S.
Madanapalli, "Transmission of IPv6 via the IPv6
Convergence Sublayer over IEEE 802.16 Networks", RFC 5121,
February 2008.
[RFC5181] Shin, M-K., Han, Y-H., Kim, S-E., and D. Premec, "IPv6
Deployment Scenarios in 802.16 Networks", RFC 5181,
May 2008.
[RFC5211] Curran, J., "An Internet Transition Plan", RFC 5211,
July 2008.
Appendix A. Summary of replies
This summarises the 30 replies received by February 16, 2010. Note
that the answers to some questions do not total to 30, due to missing
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answers or to multiple choices in some cases. The ISPs are
distributed as follows:
Europe: 20
North America: 6
Asia/Pacific: 4
They can additionally be classified as:
Commercial: 26
Academic/research: 4
Operating internationally: 5
Operating nationally: 25
Basic data about IP service offerings:
o Offering both origin-only and transit service: 24
o Offering no transit: 6
o Number of private/small office customers (one IPv4 address): a few
with zero, then from 30 units up to 40 million
o Number of corporate customers (block of IPv4 addresses): a few
with zero, then from 40 units up to 40000
o IP multicast service? 8 yes, 22 no
o Do any customers require multihoming to multiple ISPs? 24 yes, 6
no
o Access technologies used: xDSL, DOCSIS, leased line (X.25, TDM/
PDH, SDH), frame relay, dialup, microwave, FTTP, CDMA, UMTS, LTE,
WiMAX, BWA, WiFi, Ethernet (100M-10G), Ether/MPLS, IPv6-in-IPv4
tunnels
Customer Premises Equipment:
o Do customers use CPE that ISP supplies? 26 yes (20% to 100% of
customers), 4 no
o Does the CPE provided support native IPv6? 16 yes (some), 10 no
o (Note that these numbers include answers that apply to tens of
millions of mobile handsets.)
IPv4 Address Space:
o When do you expect to run out of public IPv4 address space inside
your own network? Estimates run from "now" to 2020, but 4 ISPs
say "never" or "unforeseeable".
o Do you run RFC1918 addresses and NAT within your network? 9 yes;
17 no; 3 others say yes, but only for equipment management or
L3VPN.
o What % of IPv4 space is needed for ISP use (not for customers)? 1%
to 30% (and 100% for NRENs with PI customers).
o When do you expect to run out of public IPv4 address space for
customers? Answers range from 2010 to 2015; 4 ISPs say it depends
on their registry. 3 or 4 give answers suggesting it will never
happen.
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o Do you offer RFC1918 addresses to customers? 6 yes, 23 no
IPv6 Requirements:
o Are some big customers requesting IPv6? 18 yes, 12 no
o When do you predict 10% and 50% of customers to require IPv6
service? Ignoring unclear answers, answers for 10% range from
2010 to 2017, and for 50% from 2011 to 2020.
o When do you require IPv6 to be a standard service available to all
customers? Answers range from 2010 to 2015; the most common
answer is 2011.
o When do you predict IPv6 traffic to reach 50% of total traffic?
Answers range from 2011 to 2020; the most common answer is 2015.
IPv6 Status and Plans:
o Do you currently offer IPv6 as a regular service? 12 yes, 5
partial, 12 no
o What % of customers currently use IPv6? <1% to 30%; mostly 0 or
<1%
o When do you plan to start IPv6 deployment? 11 complete, 12 in
progress, 3 in plan, 4 have no plan
o When do you plan to offer IPv6 as a special or beta-test service?
For all those in progress or with a plan, the answer was either
"now" or during 2010.
o When do you plan to offer IPv6 as a regular service to all
customers? For all those in progress or with a plan, the answer
was between "now" and 2013 (except for one ISP who replied that it
depends on the marketing department).
IPv6 Technologies. Note the answers refer to actual deployment or to
plans, as the case may be:
o Which basic IPv6 access method(s) apply?
* Dual stack routing backbone: 28 yes, 1 maybe
* Separate IPv4 and IPv6 backbones: 2 yes, 1 maybe
* 6to4 relay: 12 yes
* Teredo server: 5 yes
* Tunnel broker: Unfortunately this question was unclear and
obviously misunderstood by most respondents. Several
respondents mentioned that they are getting their own transit
connectivity via static tunnels.
* Something else: Answers were 6VPE + NAT64/DNS64; PNAT;
"considering 6RD"
o Please briefly explain the main reasons/issues behind your choice:
The best summary of the answers is "dual stack is simplest, why do
anything else?".
o Which types of equipment in your network are unable to support
IPv6? The most common answer was CPE (9 mentions). Also
mentioned: handsets; DSLAMs; routers (including several specific
models); traffic management boxes; load balancers; VPN boxes;
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management interfaces & systems; firewalls; billing systems.
o Can they be field-upgraded? 5 yes, 4 partially, 10 no and numerous
"don't know" or "hopefully"
o Is any equipment 100% dedicated to IPv6? 7 yes, 23 no
o Is IPv6 an opportunity to restructure your whole topology? 2 yes,
5 partial, 23 no
o Do you include support for DNS AAAA queries over IPv6? 20 yes, 5
plan, 4 no
o Do you include support for reverse DNS for IPv6 addresses? 21 yes,
3 plan, 5 no
o What length(s) of IPv6 prefix do you have or need from the
registry? 1 /19, 1 /21 (plus several /32s), 1 /22 1 /30, 3
multiple /32s, 20 /32, 3 /48
o What length(s) of IPv6 prefix are offered to customers? 15 ISPs
offer more than one of /48, /52, /56, /60 or /64. 2 offer /56
only, 7 offer /48 only. Two wired operators offer /64 only.
Mobile operators offer /64 in accordance with 3GPP, but at least
one would like to be allowed to offer /128 or /126.
o Do any customers share their IPv6 prefix among multiple hosts?
Unfortunately this question was unclear and obviously
misunderstood by most respondents.
o Do any of your customers prefer to use PI IPv6 prefixes? 9 yes, 17
no
o How are IPv6 prefixes delegated to CPEs? 15 manual, 10
DHCPv6[-PD], 8 SLAAC, 8 RADIUS, 2 PPoE
o Are your SMTP, POP3 and IMAP services dual-stack? 10 yes, 6 plan,
12 no
o Are your HTTP services, including caching and webmail, dual-stack?
9 yes, 1 partial, 4 plan, 14 no
o Are any other services dual-stack? 11 yes, 2 plan, 10 no
o Is each of the following dual-stack?
* Firewalls: 12 yes, 3 partial, 3 plan, 8 no
* Intrusion detection: 10 yes, 2 plan, 12 no
* Address management software: 15 yes, 1 plan, 12 no
* Accounting software: 7 yes, 20 no
* Monitoring software: 16 yes,2 partial,2 plan, 10 no
* Network management tools: 13 yes, 4 partial,1 plan, 10 no
o Do you or will you have IPv6-only customers? 13 yes (or maybe), 17
no (or not likely)
o Do you have customers who have explicitly refused to consider
IPv6? 5 yes, 22 no
o Interworking issues:
* How many years do you expect customers to run any IPv4-only
applications? Answers range from 2 years to infinity, most
frequent answer is >10 years.
* Is IPv6-IPv4 interworking at the the IP layer needed? 15 yes,9
uncertain, 3 no
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* Do you include a NAT-PT IPv6/IPv4 translator? 2 yes,1 plan, 25
no
* If yes, does that include DNS translation? 1 plan, 2 no
* If not, do you plan to operate an IPv6/IPv4 translator? 10 plan
(NAT64), 7 no, others uncertain
* If not, how do you plan to connect IPv6-only customers to IPv4-
only services? 7 rely on dual stack; 3 have no plan (one said
"their problem")
* If you offer IP multicast, will that need to be translated too?
1 yes, 2 uncertain, 5 no
o Any plans for Mobile IPv6 (or Nemo mobile networks)? 6 yes,2
uncertain, 21 no
Appendix B. Questionnaire
This appendix reproduces the technical body of the questionnaire that
was made available for ISPs to express their requirements, plans and
experience.
I. General questions about IP service
1.Do you offer origin-only (stub, end-user) IP service, transit IP
service, or both?
2.Approximate number of private/small office customers (one IPv4
address)
3.Approximate number of corporate customers (block of IPv4
addresses, not included in Q2)
4.Do you offer IP multicast service?
5.Do any of your customers require multihoming to multiple ISPs?
6.Access technologies used (ADSL,etc.)
7.Do your customers use CPE that you supply?
7.1.What % of customers?
7.2.Does the CPE that you provide support native IPv6?
8.When do you expect to run out of public IPv4 address space
inside your own network?
8.1.Do you run private (RFC1918) addresses and NAT within your
network (i.e., a second layer of NAT in the
case of customers with their own NAT)?
8.2.What % of your IPv4 space is needed for your own use (not for
customers)?
9.When do you expect to run out of public IPv4 address space for
customers?
9.1.Do you offer private (RFC1918) addresses to your customers?
II. Questions about requirements for IPv6 service
10.Are some big customers requesting IPv6?
11.When do you predict 10% and 50% of your customers to require
IPv6 service?
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12.When do you require IPv6 to be a standard service available to
all customers?
13.When do you predict IPv6 traffic to reach 50% of total traffic?
III. Questions about status and plans for IPv6 service
14.Do you currently offer IPv6 as a regular service?
14.1.What % of your customers currently use IPv6?
14.2.When do you plan to start IPv6 deployment?
14.3.When do you plan to offer IPv6 as a special or beta-test
service to customers?
15.When do you plan to offer IPv6 as a regular service to all
customers?
IV. Questions about IPv6 technologies
16.Which basic IPv6 access method(s) apply:
16.1. dual stack routing backbone?
16.2. separate IPv4 and IPv6 backbones?
16.3. 6to4 relay?
16.4. Teredo server?
16.5. tunnel broker? If so, which one?
16.6. Something else? Please briefly describe your method:
16.7. If possible, please briefly explain the main reasons/issues
behind your choice.
17.Which types of equipment in your network are unable to support
IPv6?
17.1.Can they be field-upgraded to support IPv6?
17.2.Is any equipment 100% dedicated to IPv6?
18.Is IPv6 an opportunity to restructure your whole topology?
19.Do you include support for DNS AAAA queries over IPv6?
20.Do you include support for reverse DNS for IPv6 addresses?
21.What length(s) of IPv6 prefix do you have or need from the
registry?
22.What length(s) of IPv6 prefix are offered to customers?
22.1.Do any customers share their IPv6 prefix among multiple
hosts?
23.Do any of your customers prefer to use PI IPv6 prefixes instead
of a prefix from you?
24.How are IPv6 prefixes delegated to CPEs? (Manual, PPPoE,
RADIUS, DHCPv6, stateless autoconfiguration/RA, etc...)
25.Are your SMTP, POP3 and IMAP services dual-stack?
26.Are your HTTP services, including caching and webmail, dual-
stack?
27.Are any other services dual-stack?
28.Is each of the following dual-stack?
28.1.Firewalls
28.2.Intrusion detection
28.3.Address management software
28.4.Accounting software
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28.5.Monitoring software
28.6.Network management tools
29.Do you or will you have IPv6-only customers?
30.Do you have customers who have explicitly refused to consider
IPv6?
31.How many years do you expect customers to run any IPv4-only
applications?
32.Is IPv6-IPv4 interworking at the the IP layer needed?
33.Do you include a NAT-PT IPv6/IPv4 translator?
33.1.If yes, does that include DNS translation?
33.2.If not, do you plan to operate an IPv6/IPv4 translator?
33.3.If not, how do you plan to connect IPv6-only customers to
IPv4-only services?
33.4.If you offer IP multicast, will that need to be translated
too?
34.Any plans for Mobile IPv6 (or Nemo mobile networks)?
35.What features and tools are missing today for IPv6 deployment
and operations?
36.Any other comments about your IPv6 experience or plans? What
went well, what was difficult, etc.
Authors' Addresses
Brian Carpenter
Department of Computer Science
University of Auckland
PB 92019
Auckland, 1142
New Zealand
Email: brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com
Sheng Jiang
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
KuiKe Building, No.9 Xinxi Rd.,
Shang-Di Information Industry Base, Hai-Dian District, Beijing
P.R. China
Email: shengjiang@huawei.com
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