On 8 May 2000, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

# Greywolf <greywolf@starwolf.com> writes:
# > I have a serious question for the v6 pundits.  If we DON'T go to IPv6,
# > we run a serious risk of actually running out of IP addresses.  Are
# > we going to turn to bi-level NAT, or N-level NAT, or are we going to
# > do something _sensible_?
# 
# The only thing you *can* do is N level NAT, and it doesn't work very
# well.

By the way, folks, I don't think this was made very clear on my part:

The "something _sensible_" to which I allude is open-ended -- it could
be IPv6, it could be something else.  Someone questioned ATM, ISO OSI
and some other stuff, so I have some questions regarding them.

1.  Do ATM or ISO OSI attempt to deal with the limited address space in
    which we currently live?

2.  Are we not running the ISO stack in networking right now?  I thought
    the "old" TCP/IP stack had already been phased out (I can hear it
    already:  "Gods, NO!  Where have you been?").  Never mind :-)

    Just as well.  The ISO stack is really a nine-layer model with
    "Bureaucracy" and "Finance" as the top two layers in the stack...

And given that IPv6 is the only one that appears to me to be dealing with
address space issues, and the only one which is really being pushed out
there, I'm placing my bet on IPv6.  It's probably better thought out
than either of the other two mentioned.

# > What we could stand is someone like Cisco or Nortel, one o' them Big
# > Gunnish type guys, to come out with routers and switches which handle
# > IPv6 natively.
# 
# They do already. The latest Nortel firmware handles v6, and Cisco is
# now starting to ship v6 production firmware for many of their routers.

I think I may win that bet.

				--*greywolf;
--
Of course it runs BSD.