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 [email protected] 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



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RFC 1669          IPng White Paper on Market Viability       August 1994


  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



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RFC 1669          IPng White Paper on Market Viability       August 1994


  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.






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RFC 1669          IPng White Paper on Market Viability       August 1994


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

  EMail: [email protected]







































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