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AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

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Re: AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

#21
post #14
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And of course it's a great way to get people to move to IPv6, since those are still "free" (in quotes because those prices are still baked into the things that support them). They are basically free because there is no shortage of them.

The costs to AWS are having to upgrade all their routers and any other equipment that handles IP (including the management cards in each physical host).

What percentage of their routers were acquired pre-IPv6? S3 wasn't publicly available until 2006, EC2 followed later. Was most enterprise networking equipment in the mid 2000's still without IPv6 support?

Re: AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

#22

Jeez. Eventually someone is going to break down and invent a new IP solution that doubles the number of addresses that we have now. I mean if I were doing it, I'd probably make it more like 1,028 times bigger but maybe it would present as hubris. Addresses would be so plentiful they'd basically be free. And since I am using magic to do all of this, I'd invent it over 20 years ago, so that it'd have been decades since…

"If we don't study the mistakes of the future, we're bound to repeat them for the first time." - Ken M

Re: AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

#23
post #14
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And of course it's a great way to get people to move to IPv6, since those are still "free" (in quotes because those prices are still baked into the things that support them). They are basically free because there is no shortage of them.

The costs to AWS are having to upgrade all their routers and any other equipment that handles IP (including the management cards in each physical host).

There is no way AWS has any equipment that is not IPv6-ready. These things are replaced about every 5 years or so. I bet it's all software that assumes IPv4, which is arguably worse.

Re: AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

#24

Jeez. Eventually someone is going to break down and invent a new IP solution that doubles the number of addresses that we have now. I mean if I were doing it, I'd probably make it more like 1,028 times bigger but maybe it would present as hubris. Addresses would be so plentiful they'd basically be free. And since I am using magic to do all of this, I'd invent it over 20 years ago, so that it'd have been decades since…

And I would make sure it had complete feature parity with IPv4 (DHCP, VRRP etc) instead of embarking on a religious crusade to reinvent the way devices connect.

It took over a decade to get feature parity from the non-network-operators that overtook the IETF, and that seriously delayed IPv6 adoption.

Re: AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

#25
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awesome. I have no doubt you would use common sense and make the addresses in this new system simple, recognizable, and just an extended version of what everybody is already used to, like 111.222.33.44.55.66

This right here was the biggest mistake for IPv6. Adoption would have been so much easier if IP6s were just "extra numbers" tacked onto the end so that if an old router saw it, it would ignore the extra bits and send it to the "IPv4" part of the address.

The potential number of edge cases in IPv4-only hardware is staggering.

Re: AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

#26
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here was the biggest mistake for IPv6. Adoption would have been so much easier if IP6s were just "extra numbers" tacked onto the end so that if an old router saw it, it would ignore the extra bits and send it to the "IPv4" part of the address.

The potential number of edge cases in IPv4-only hardware is staggering.

For sure, and they would have been found really quickly. But in either case, it would involve fixing or upgrading the hardware or software, which is true whether we do it with extra numbers or the whole new scheme for IPv6.

Re: AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

#28
post #11

This is the only way IPv6 will ever finally take off; if there's a cost to IPv4.

Money is a terrible discriminator unless you want to advantage the rich. This would fuck up connectivity for everyone that relies on affordable hosting long before it'd force a rusted old enterprise to adopt IPv6.

dig github.com AAAA

Re: AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

#29
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awesome. I have no doubt you would use common sense and make the addresses in this new system simple, recognizable, and just an extended version of what everybody is already used to, like 111.222.33.44.55.66

This right here was the biggest mistake for IPv6. Adoption would have been so much easier if IP6s were just "extra numbers" tacked onto the end so that if an old router saw it, it would ignore the extra bits and send it to the "IPv4" part of the address.

That's not how routers or routes work.

Re: AWS is estimated to make $400M to $1B with the new IPv4 charge

#30

Jeez. Eventually someone is going to break down and invent a new IP solution that doubles the number of addresses that we have now. I mean if I were doing it, I'd probably make it more like 1,028 times bigger but maybe it would present as hubris. Addresses would be so plentiful they'd basically be free. And since I am using magic to do all of this, I'd invent it over 20 years ago, so that it'd have been decades since…

I know you're joking & making fun of glacial IPv6 adoption, but if IPv6 was just IPv4 + more address bits, I'm sure it'd be fully adopted by now and IPv4 would be something kids taking computer networking courses would be taught about in the "history" section.

IPv6 involved too many other changes to make it a straightforward upgrade. I agree that it's ridiculous that we still don't have universal v6 support, but let's not pretend the protocol designers made it easy.

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