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DRAFT TRANSCRIPT

SIG:           Policy
Date:          Thursday 2 March 2006
Time:          11.00am

Presentation:  Survey results in JP on IPv6 policy change
Presenter:     Izumi Okutani
			       
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TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

So next speaker is Izumi Okutani from JPNIC.

She will be talking about survey results in JP on IPv6 policy change.

IZUMI OKUTANI:

Sorry. It took some time to get ready.

Hello, everybody. My name is Izumi Okutani and I work for JPNIC,
which is the National Internet Registry in Japan.

In this presentation, I would like to introduce the results of the
surveys we made over the change of IPv6 assignment size, which was
proposed at the last meeting by Geoff.

So just to explain the background a little bit - in the last meeting,
in APNIC 20, I remember that Geoff Huston made a proposal to - not
exactly to change - but add a new assignment size of /56 in addition
to the current /48. And, for this particular idea, there was a
strong concern expressed by one of the members in Japan and we
wanted to find out if it was just this member which was really
concerned about this change or, you know, it reflects the concerns
of the community in general. So we decided to conduct a survey.

And the objective is from two points. Firstly - to see how this
policy change would impact LIRs from the perspective of services
they're providing, the network and the impact to their customers
and also if it would, you know, lead to any additional expenses.

And the second point is that, we understand that there has been,
like, slight three variations of the similar proposal. One is what's
been proposed in APNIC 20 and another one has been proposed in RIPE,
which is a little bit different version from the APNIC one, and
also in ARIN. So we wanted to know if, out of these three proposals,
a particular proposal would make it more agreeable to the LIRs in
Japan or not, or they just don't like the idea in general.

So what we did was that, we have 64 LIRs who are currently receiving
IPv6 assignments in Japan, so we sent an e-mail questionnaire to
these people. We got responses from 36 LIRs, so that's a little
over 50% responses. And the services they're providing is a little
over 70%, the majority of the LIRs are currently still providing
the testing service and the rest - a little less than 30% of the
LIRs - have started the commercial service.

And the method is that we basically sent an e-mail questionnaire
on these four areas that I've just explained earlier - which is
services, network, customer and cost. And we asked questions - how
the policy change would have an impact on these four areas for each
of the three cases.

Case 1 is the case which was introduced, proposed, in APNIC 20.
This is simply adding a /56 as an additional assignment size to
/48. And this is intended to be used for SOHO or home users.

The second case is what was proposed in RIPE 50 and RIPE 51, I
believe. And the difference between the APNIC one and this one is
that an LIR can decide whether to have a /48 or /56, depending on
their needs. So it's more flexible than the one that was proposed
in APNIC 20.

And Case 3 - I don't think it's formally been proposed in ARIN, but
there was a talk about removing the fixed boundary. So instead of
fixing boundaries to /48 or /56, let's do it like IPv4, so it can
be anywhere within the boundary. For example, it can be a /39 or
/64 or whatever size the LIR thinks is appropriate to fit the size
of the network.

So we tried to see the impact on each of the three cases.

And so the result is first, the impact on the service. We found
that regardless of which case it was, the majority of the people
felt that there's no impact on their service they're providing. So
over 80% of the people replied 'no impact'.

And reasons that they felt there was no impact was because most of
them haven't started the commercial service. And we were expecting
maybe, you know, they might give the reason, "It would have more
flexibility in size for Cases 2 and 3," but, when we actually see
the results, not that many people see this as the reason.

And for those people who have actually replied that there will be
impact on the service, for most of them, they have to change the
target of the service if this policy would be implemented. For
example, I think at the moment they don't really differentiate
between, like, SOHO and corporate services but they might have to,
you know, start splitting the target or things like that.

The impact on the network. Again, the majority of the people replied
there's no impact on the network. And as the flexibility of the
policy increases, the impact slightly decreases. And it seems that
the more flexibility that there is given to the policy, the impact
will shift from the customer network to the infrastructure. So they
have to make more changes to the infrastructure rather than the
customer, for Case 3 compared to Case 1.

And the third impact on existing customers, again, there's hardly
no impact on the existing customers and, as you can see, for Case
3, there is hardly no impact, because it gives a lot of flexibility.

But - this is the area that was - people expressed there would be
a substantial impact. This is the cost. Over 50% of the people
replied that they would have to, you know, have additional cost,
additional cost to deal with this policy change. And although, if
you look at each of the three cases, Case 3 would have the least
impact out of the three, the impact is still over 50%. And so we
looked further into it and so, what would be - what would specifically
be the actual cost that will be incurred as a result of this policy
change.

And the majority of the people replied that it's between - it's
about less than 1 million yen - sorry, the majority of the people
replied that it would be less than 500,000 yen or 0.3 man months
but there were also about three LIRs, maybe less than 10% of the
LIRs, replied that they have to pay more than 1 million Japanese
yen to deal with this policy change. Which is a very large amount.

And we also received some comments regarding this policy change,
which, instead of just, you know, ticking the questions.

And first is that there were generally very negative feelings towards
removing fixed boundaries. So, for Case 3, quite a lot of LIRs -
not in numbers, but people expressed strong concerns over this, not
necessarily because of the direct cost that might be incurred from
there, but it would increase their fixed cost for their hostmaster
work or network because it would increase the complexity of their
network.

And some people also felt that there seems to be quite a few policy
changes before, you know, the IPv6 is actually taking place. So it
might give some impressions to users or people in the company that,
you know, IPv6 is still a stable technology and it might have some
impact on the deployment.

Another thing is that I think some people genuinely didn't understand
- why we still need to change this policy instead of the HD-ratio
change, which reached consensus in the last meeting. And I understand
that this is just a projection and not a prediction, but, you know,
people felt that if it would extend the life of IPv6 up to 600
years, why do we have to go through further changes of changing the
assignment size as well. That was a question.

And I also briefly introduced the situation in the ARIN community,
that there seems to have quite a substantial support for removing
the fixed boundaries, and questions were asked over why there is a
difference in opinion in JP and ARIN and whether the rest of the
community outside Japan is aware of this kind of impact and situation
in Japan and discussing these kinds of changes. And, if not, they
wanted us to share this situation with the rest of the community.

And then the third point is pretty much - maybe it's a lot to do
with, like, the nature of our nation, that we really like to, you
know, look into the details, but people felt that the details of
the actual implementation was not so clear - how it would affect
the additional allocation or how they should judge, you know, which
size to assign. So some people felt that they can't judge, you know,
if they support this proposal or not because the details are not
clear.

So, the overall observation on the result of the proposal is that,
generally, there are no major notable impact in most of the areas
- i.e. services, network and to their customers - but there are
substantial impact on the cost to deal with this change and not
just in terms of the numbers but two of the LIRs in Japan actually
have to go through over US$85,000 to deal with this change, so it
really is not small.

And also, in terms of the survey results, if we just look at the
numbers, it seems that Case 3 demonstrates the least impact but,
in the comments section, people did, you know, express quite a
strong concern.

So our feeling is that, if we are going to implement this policy
at all in the future, Case 2 would probably be most agreeable but
we still have to consider the impact it would have on the cost.

So the general feeling in Japan over this, you know, proposal is
that, they're not necessarily against, you know, the changes, if
they can be convinced that it would be for the good of the Internet.
But the practical, actual impact is very real to them and how it
would help the Internet in general seems really conceptual to them
at the moment. So that's why they're not really convinced of the
needs for this kind of policy change.

But, at the same time, if they can be more convinced that, you know,
this would be for the good of the Internet, I don't think they would
strongly be opposed to this policy change.

And, well, they feel that HD-ratio change, which was passed in the
last meeting, you know, that could be acceptable and, OK, maybe we
can go through this change, but why do we really have to go further
and make changes in the assignment size when there are these kind
of impacts.

These were the questions that were raised.

And since it did not reach consensus at the last APNIC meeting, we
did not take a consensus vote, so it's more my impression of opinion
rather than a full representation of the consensus in Japan.

So the issues to be considered would be to what extent should we
consider this kind of impact to the ISPs for changing the policy?
And the second point is that JPNIC also understands that the intention
of the policy and we have to look in the long term for the good of
the Internet, so what would be a good balance between this long-term
impact and the short-term impact that it might have on the ISPs?

And that's all from me. Thank you.

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

Thank you. Thank you, Izumi.

Any comments or questions?

I'm sure you have, Geoff.

GEOFF HUSTON:

Geoff Huston, APNIC.

As one of the folk who authored, I think, that proposal at the
start, I'd like to thank you, first, for conducting the survey and
the answer is, indeed, very interesting and useful.

I think your final comments were actually precisely the point of
the problem. What's the balance between the long-term view and the
short-term issues?

And the underlying thinking behind this particular proposal was
actually concerned with how long should the industry view IPv6 as
a sustainable solution and, in that time frame, how many things get
made out of silicone that want to communicate?

The other assumption inside v6 that actually wasn't stated upfront
in that policy proposal, but nevertheless is a fundamental piece
of IPv6 assumption - there are no NATs. So every device, every
thing, every RFID, every thing, gets an address. And when the
original IPv6 addressing architecture was set up - and there were
a number of iterations of it - the feeling inside the community at
the time was, "Well, we'll do this for the first one eighth of the
address space and, if we're wrong, we'll just change it later."

I think what we're finding as an industry is that that attitude
doesn't work. And that we're finding, particularly with IPv4, that
the early recipients of address space are certainly being examined
in terms of one university, an entire /8, you know, what happened
there and why should that persist? And we're finding that undoing
those early decisions and changing things on the fly is remarkably
hard.

IZUMI OKUTANI:

Yeah.

GEOFF HUSTON:

So part of the intention of the proposal was, indeed, to err towards
the long-side view and, if there was any kind of, "Well, you know,
the HD-ratio might not be enough," what do you do then and how easy
would it be to change? The comment that I made at the time and I
would make again is once you get to deploying 50 billion - 100
billion - devices on a network and you get entrenched operations
that are commodity-based - it's no longer high expertise, high touch
- can you change anything? Have you then started on a track that
you cannot deviate from due to its sheer size and inertia?

So the question about the balance between long and short is just
spot on. And it's a tough question to answer in any industry and
we're now being faced with it here. I had certainly erred on the
view of long term. I have enormous hope in v6 that it encompasses
an amazing world, much, much bigger than any of us could possibly
imagine and, in that case, you need more addresses than the existing
policy will give you. So, yes, it's a good question. I'd like to
highlight that in this discussion.

IZUMI OKUTANI:

Thank you very much for the explanation. I think pretty much everyone
in JPNIC understands your idea and concept. So we probably have to
go a little bit more into, you know, explaining the situation to
our community. At the same time, at this stage, the whole thing
seems a bit conceptual to them. That's the current stage. We probably
have to still, you know, coordinate between our community and the
AP as well. Thank you, Geoff.

RANDY BUSH:

Randy Bush, IIJ. Sorry to continue the Geoff and Randy show.

What we have here, interestingly, Geoff, is a very example of an
installed base that's having difficulty changing. Even at this
stage. How much it will cost to change from the way we're doing it
now to Case 1, Case 2, Case 3, right? Is the core of, you know -
how much will the cost be? How much effort? We already have the
problem of the installed base trying to change.

So maybe they could think that this is, you know that this is a
problem we have at the baby step today and, if we don't make the
changes now that we know how to make well, that the problem is going
to be 1,000 times larger three years from now. The whole problem
is when do we make the change and changes that we know or that we
are fairly confident are wise changes for the long term should be
made as early as possible because of that greatly increasing cost.

IZUMI OKUTANI:

Yeah. I think that's a really good point but, at the same time, I
think maybe feel that, if this was proposed at the time of when the
policy was first developed, that it would have been OK. But what
are we going to do about those two companies that, you know, are
facing these kind of costs? Are we going to say, "You're just, like,
two in the whole world so just forget it."

RANDY BUSH:

Will it get better for them? I shouldn't even use the third person.
I believe I can say 'we' in this case. Will it get better when we
have to make the bigger change three years out?

Those of us that lived through the CIDR change where we paid late,
where we paid this very change late, it was 100 times more difficult
and expensive than if we'd done it 10 years earlier.

So those two companies that have a significant cost today, if we
are confident that the design change will eventually have to be
made for a better Internet, you know, they are trading - whatever
it is - 1,000 yen for 1 million yen tomorrow.

And that's an American planning point of view, not a Japanese
planning point of view.

IZUMI OKUTANI:

OK. Thank you, Randy.

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

Thank you. Any other comments or questions?

No?

GEOFF HUSTON:

Geoff Huston. I'm actually now just a little bit confused about
next steps and I actually would like to understand, at least from
this Policy SIG's point of view, what the next step is. Right now,
the proposal relating to end-site allocations is not a proposal any
more. It's gone away. It's not active.

There is a proposal inside the RIPE community, as you pointed out,
the variable-size one, with a better degree of detail as to how
allocations are assessed. But there's nothing in APNIC.

I'm quite happy to work with the ad hoc committee that I've been
working with before as part of the IAB to resubmit a proposal more
like the RIPE NCC one for consideration. But I don't want to waste
this room's time if it's simply nothing's changed and it won't go
anywhere.

So if there is some interest in reconsidering this matter, and you
would like a policy proposal to focus your attention on what is
possible here, I am more than happy, if you will, to take this
advice and resubmit a proposal.

But I would actually prefer some guidance from the SIG upfront as
to whether you really want to continue to consider this issue. So
do you want to see this proposal more along the lines of a RIPE NCC
model, where it's purely variable, resubmitted into the APNIC process
or not? It's not a case of whether you'd eventually approve it or
not. It's do you want to keep on discussing this?

RANDY BUSH:

I'll help if you do it.

GEOFF HUSTON:

That was Randy Bush volunteering some help, which would be gratefully
accepted.

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

So, Geoff, yes, you can always submit your proposal at any time if
you like to. I'm not sure whether there is a need from other members
or participants in the SIG. So I'd like to know whether you have
the interest to see the proposal coming again.

GEOFF HUSTON:

I would like to know the same answer. Yes.

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

OK, OK.

So I would like to see your hand if you have any interest to see
the proposal to change the assignment size in IPv6 assignment sizes.
If you have any interest, please raise your hand.

(Pause)

Thank you.

GEOFF HUSTON:

I'll obviously take the chair's guidance here, but given that show
of hands, I don't believe you're going to see this policy proposal.

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

I know that but I'd like to see how many of you are interested.
Kosuke-san.

KOSUKE ITO:

Kosuke speaking.

Many of us are really interested in this discussion but it's pretty
much long-term issue to be clarified - how, even how this is proposed
at this stage, I guess. It's been a little bit too short to say
whether changing the assignment size is in favour or not. We never
know how much impact there's going to be.

So I guess, if you call the hands how many people are interested
in this discussion, then many of them will raise their hands. But
I don't know how many people are in favour to change the assignment
size and I, myself, is hardly raising my hand, I guess.

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

Thanks for your comment.

RANDY BUSH:

We have been here before.

We will change the assignment size.

Do you want to do it now, while it's cheap? Or do you want to do
it later, while it's a thousand or a million times more expensive?

GEOFF HUSTON:

I'm sorry if I was unclear. I was indeed asking for interest, not
approval.

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

We know.

GEOFF HUSTON:

I thought I heard some confusion about what you're asking for.

It's not whether you're in favour of doing the change at this point
but it helps the discussion to have a proposal to talk about it.

And the question really was from me - do you wish in this SIG to
continue to consider this, in which case I'm happy to produce a
policy proposal again that would help you discuss. But if there's
no interest in even talking about it, then there's no point in
producing a policy proposal at this point if you're not interested
in discussing.

So that's what I thought the show of hands was about and, if there
was some confusion there, then I hope this has clarified it.

Would you like to ask for another show of hands, simply for interest?

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

OK, OK. Simply on interest, would you like to continue discussion
on this matter. Please raise your hands.

OK. Thank you.

KENNY HUANG:

Good enough?

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

Yeah. Apparently we should continue this kind of discussion in the
future.

GEOFF HUSTON:

In that case, with your approval, I will submit a policy proposal
to that affect to assist discussion.

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

Yes, please.

AKINORI MAEMURA:

Izumi-san is not the network operator and she just represents JPNIC
in the community. So I'd like to have that kind of discussion from
the Japanese community so I'm asking the Japanese community to
participate in this discussion very much and then I think that will
move the discussion forward for our community in Japan.

TOSHIYUKI HOSAKA:

Thank you, Maemura-san.

Any other comments?

OK, so thank you, Izumi.

IZUMI OKUTANI:

Thank you.

APPLAUSE