Internet DRAFT - draft-curran-viability
draft-curran-viability
Network Working Group J. Curran
Internet draft BBN
Expire: September 1994 25 March 1994
Market Viability as a IPng Criteria
<draft-curran-ipng-viability-00.txt>
Status of this Memo
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.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
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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.
Curran [Page 1]
Internet draft IPng White Paper on Market Viability 25 March 1994
"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.
Curran [Page 2]
Internet draft IPng White Paper on Market Viability 25 March 1994
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.
Curran [Page 3]
Internet draft IPng White Paper on Market Viability 25 March 1994
Author's Address
John Curran
BBN Technology Services, Inc.
10 Moulton Street
Cambridge MA 02138
jcurran@near.net
