Mailing List Archive: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block

IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block

Jan 14, 2024, 7:50 PM

Post #1 of 13 (318 views)

Hi, Ryan:

1)     " ... it accounts for 40% of the traffic at Google.   ":

    Perhaps you were referring to the following?

https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

2)    If so, your quotation is correct, except there are some hidden
stories below the surface:

    A.    When you Google for it with key words "IPv6 Traffic Google",
the first hit shows "IPv6 *_/Adoption/_*" that lead to the above. So,
strictly speaking, it is _/*not traffic */_data that you are looking at.

    B.    Above the actual graph, you will find statements, such as "
... the *_/availability of IPv6 connectivity/_*_/**/_among Google users.
...." So, legally, the graph is correct on its own right, but may not be
exactly what you thought. Reader be aware!

    It implies that the graph the IPv6 capability (equipment readiness)
of Google users, not necessarily the actual traffic they generate. The
two do not equate to each other.
3)    However, the above did seem to support what was generally said in
the public. Until, we found an interesting ongoing (the only one of such
resource that is updated about every ten minutes) statistics by AMS-IX
(AMSterdam Internet eXchange) :

https://stats.ams-ix.net/sflow/ipv6.html

https://stats.ams-ix.net/sflow/ether_type.html
a
    The second URL shows that IPv6 accounts for approximately 5.7% of
the overall Internet traffic that AMS-IX sees today. If one traces back
through the archived data, the earlier numbers were even much lower. In
fact, those graphs looked meaningless, because there was hardly any
visible trace colored for IPv6. This has been going on for at least the
last one decade. So, it could not be an error.

4)    We contacted AMS-IX for a possible explanation of the obvious
discrepancy. They politely referred us to our own ISPs. This triggered
our curiosity. We decided that we needed to find the full world-wide
IPv6 traffic data.

5)    There was an annual world-wide Internet traffic statistics and
forecast published by Cisco that stopped after 2017 (see URL below to
the last issue). We contacted Cisco in 2020 and got an eMail confirmation.

https://cloud.report/Resources/Whitepapers/eea79d9b-9fe3-4018-86c6-3d1df813d3b8_white-paper-c11-741490.pdf

6)    However, there has never been any equivalent publication for the
IPv6 by itself that we could locate.

7)    In search for a possible explanation of the discrepancy between
Pts. 1) & 3), we came across the following article. In brief, it
reported that the Peering agreements among Internet backbone providers
were less settled for IPv6 than IPv4. Thus, higher percentage of IPv6
traffic than that of IPv4 should have been directed through the IXs
(Internet eXchanges), such as AMS-IX.

https://www.theregister.com/2018/08/28/ipv6_peering_squabbles/

8)    The conclusion of Pt. 7) furthered our puzzlement, because it was
opposite to what we were hoping for. That is, the roughly 5.7% IPv6
traffic that AMS-IX sees implies that within the overall Internet, the
IPv6 traffic should be even less than 5.7%, not as high as Google's 40+%
(Adoption) rate. Since we did not have the resources to further the
research on this topic, we saved the above summary to share with anyone
interested in pursuing for a better understanding. It will be much
appreciated, if you could share your insights of this topic.

Regards,

Abe (2024-01-14 22:49 EST)

On 2024-01-12 09:20, Ryan Hamel wrote:
> Abraham,
>
> It has existed for many years, already supported on many devices, does
> not require NAT, address space is plentiful, does not require
> additional proposals, and it accounts for 40% of the traffic at Google.
>
> Ryan
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Abraham Y. Chen <aychen@avinta.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, January 12, 2024 3:45:32 AM
> *To:* Ryan Hamel <ryan@rkhtech.org>
> *Cc:* nanog@nanog.org <nanog@nanog.org>; Michael Butler
> <imb@protected-networks.net>; Chen, Abraham Y. <AYChen@alum.MIT.edu>
> *Subject:* IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4
> address block
>
>
> Caution: This is an external email and may be malicious. Please take
> care when clicking links or opening attachments.
>
>
> Hi, Ryan:
>
> 1)   " ... Save yourself the time and effort on this and implement
> IPv6.    ":
>
>     What is your selling point?
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Abe (2024-01-12 06:44)
>
>

--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
www.avast.com

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

lists at packetflux

Jan 14, 2024, 8:15 PM

Post #2 of 13 (316 views)

Permalink

If 50? of the servers and 50% of the clients can do IPv6, the amount of
IPv6 traffic will be around 25% since both ends have to do IPv6.

If you're running an IPv6 enabled server you'll see 50% of your traffic as
IPv6 in the above scenario. Likewise, if you are on an IPv6 connected
client, then you'll also see 50? of your traffic as IPv6.

Note that if your adoption rates are lower, say 30% and 40%, your IPv6
traffic will be lower.. around 12% in the 30/40? scenario.

Cloudflare has an interesting analysis.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/ipv6-from-dns-pov#:~:text=IPv6%20Adoption%20on%20the%20Server%20Side,-The%20following%20graph&text=IPv6%20adoption%20by%20servers%20is,what%20was%20observed%20for%20clients
.

On Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 8:51?PM Abraham Y. Chen <aychen@avinta.com> wrote:

> Hi, Ryan:
>
> 1) " ... it accounts for 40% of the traffic at Google. ":
>
> Perhaps you were referring to the following?
>
> https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html
>
> 2) If so, your quotation is correct, except there are some hidden
> stories below the surface:
>
> A. When you Google for it with key words "IPv6 Traffic Google", the
> first hit shows "IPv6 *Adoption*" that lead to the above. So, strictly
> speaking, it is *not traffic *data that you are looking at.
>
> B. Above the actual graph, you will find statements, such as "
> ... the *availability of IPv6 connectivity* among Google users. ...."
> So, legally, the graph is correct on its own right, but may not be exactly
> what you thought. Reader be aware!
>
> It implies that the graph the IPv6 capability (equipment readiness) of
> Google users, not necessarily the actual traffic they generate. The two do
> not equate to each other.
>
> 3) However, the above did seem to support what was generally said in
> the public. Until, we found an interesting ongoing (the only one of such
> resource that is updated about every ten minutes) statistics by AMS-IX
> (AMSterdam Internet eXchange) :
>
> https://stats.ams-ix.net/sflow/ipv6.html
>
> https://stats.ams-ix.net/sflow/ether_type.html
> a
> The second URL shows that IPv6 accounts for approximately 5.7% of the
> overall Internet traffic that AMS-IX sees today. If one traces back through
> the archived data, the earlier numbers were even much lower. In fact, those
> graphs looked meaningless, because there was hardly any visible trace
> colored for IPv6. This has been going on for at least the last one decade.
> So, it could not be an error.
>
> 4) We contacted AMS-IX for a possible explanation of the obvious
> discrepancy. They politely referred us to our own ISPs. This triggered our
> curiosity. We decided that we needed to find the full world-wide IPv6
> traffic data.
>
> 5) There was an annual world-wide Internet traffic statistics and
> forecast published by Cisco that stopped after 2017 (see URL below to the
> last issue). We contacted Cisco in 2020 and got an eMail confirmation.
>
>
> https://cloud.report/Resources/Whitepapers/eea79d9b-9fe3-4018-86c6-3d1df813d3b8_white-paper-c11-741490.pdf
>
> 6) However, there has never been any equivalent publication for the
> IPv6 by itself that we could locate.
>
> 7) In search for a possible explanation of the discrepancy between Pts.
> 1) & 3), we came across the following article. In brief, it reported that
> the Peering agreements among Internet backbone providers were less settled
> for IPv6 than IPv4. Thus, higher percentage of IPv6 traffic than that of
> IPv4 should have been directed through the IXs (Internet eXchanges), such
> as AMS-IX.
>
> https://www.theregister.com/2018/08/28/ipv6_peering_squabbles/
>
> 8) The conclusion of Pt. 7) furthered our puzzlement, because it was
> opposite to what we were hoping for. That is, the roughly 5.7% IPv6 traffic
> that AMS-IX sees implies that within the overall Internet, the IPv6 traffic
> should be even less than 5.7%, not as high as Google's 40+% (Adoption)
> rate. Since we did not have the resources to further the research on this
> topic, we saved the above summary to share with anyone interested in
> pursuing for a better understanding. It will be much appreciated, if you
> could share your insights of this topic.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Abe (2024-01-14 22:49 EST)
>
>
>
>
> On 2024-01-12 09:20, Ryan Hamel wrote:
>
> Abraham,
>
> It has existed for many years, already supported on many devices, does
> not require NAT, address space is plentiful, does not require additional
> proposals, and it accounts for 40% of the traffic at Google.
>
> Ryan
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Abraham Y. Chen <aychen@avinta.com> <aychen@avinta.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, January 12, 2024 3:45:32 AM
> *To:* Ryan Hamel <ryan@rkhtech.org> <ryan@rkhtech.org>
> *Cc:* nanog@nanog.org <nanog@nanog.org> <nanog@nanog.org>; Michael Butler
> <imb@protected-networks.net> <imb@protected-networks.net>; Chen, Abraham
> Y. <AYChen@alum.MIT.edu> <AYChen@alum.MIT.edu>
> *Subject:* IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4
> address block
>
>
> Caution: This is an external email and may be malicious. Please take care
> when clicking links or opening attachments.
>
> Hi, Ryan:
>
> 1) " ... Save yourself the time and effort on this and implement IPv6.
> ":
>
> What is your selling point?
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Abe (2024-01-12 06:44)
>
>
>
>
>
> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient>
> Virus-free.www.avast.com
> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient>
> <#m_-185959041418492683_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
>

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

saku at ytti

Jan 14, 2024, 10:50 PM

Post #3 of 13 (316 views)

Permalink

On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 06:18, Forrest Christian (List Account) <
lists@packetflux.com> wrote:

If 50? of the servers and 50% of the clients can do IPv6, the amount of
> IPv6 traffic will be around 25% since both ends have to do IPv6.
>

This assumes cosmological principle applies to the Internet, but Internet
traffic is not uniformly distributed.

It is entirely possible, and even reasonable, that AMSIX ~5% and GOOG 40%
are bps shares, and both are correct. Because AMSIX sees large entropy
between A-B end-points, GOOG sees very low entropy, it being always the B.

Certain tier1 transit network could see traffic being >50% IPv6 between two
specific pops, so great IPv6 adoption? Except it was a single CDN sending
traffic from them to them, if you'd exclude that CDN flows between the pop,
the IPv6 traffic share was low single digit percentage.

I am not saying IPv6 traffic is not increasing, I am saying that we are not
doing any favours to anyone, pretending we are on-track and that this will
happen, and that there are organic drivers which will ensure we are going
to end up with IPV6-only Internet.

--
++ytti

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

nanog at nanog

Jan 15, 2024, 12:01 AM

Post #4 of 13 (316 views)

Permalink

All those measurements are missing the amount of traffic in the caches located at the ISPs.

For each download passing thru AMSIX, there are thousands of multiples of that download (videos, music, documents, static contents, OS updates, etc.) flowing to thousands of customers. In some cases is even hundreds of thousands, or even millions.

There is not an easy way to measure IPv6 traffic, unless it is done at the ISP level, and if you as, to ISPs that have deployed IPv6, they will tell you different numbers. For example, T-Mobile already explained a few years ago in v6ops that they were having over 75% of IPv6 traffic, 24% in the NAT64 and 1% in the CLAT+NAT64.

In actual customer deployments I see the same levels, even up to 85% of IPv6 traffic. It basically depends on the usage of the caches and the % of residential vs corporate customers.

Regards,
Jordi

@jordipalet

> El 15 ene 2024, a las 7:50, Saku Ytti <saku@ytti.fi> escribió:
>
> On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 06:18, Forrest Christian (List Account) <lists@packetflux.com <mailto:lists@packetflux.com>> wrote:
>
>> If 50? of the servers and 50% of the clients can do IPv6, the amount of IPv6 traffic will be around 25% since both ends have to do IPv6.
>
> This assumes cosmological principle applies to the Internet, but Internet traffic is not uniformly distributed.
>
> It is entirely possible, and even reasonable, that AMSIX ~5% and GOOG 40% are bps shares, and both are correct. Because AMSIX sees large entropy between A-B end-points, GOOG sees very low entropy, it being always the B.
>
> Certain tier1 transit network could see traffic being >50% IPv6 between two specific pops, so great IPv6 adoption? Except it was a single CDN sending traffic from them to them, if you'd exclude that CDN flows between the pop, the IPv6 traffic share was low single digit percentage.
>
> I am not saying IPv6 traffic is not increasing, I am saying that we are not doing any favours to anyone, pretending we are on-track and that this will happen, and that there are organic drivers which will ensure we are going to end up with IPV6-only Internet.
>
> --
> ++ytti

**********************************************
IPv4 is over
Are you ready for the new Internet ?
http://www.theipv6company.com
The IPv6 Company

This electronic message contains information which may be privileged or confidential. The information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s) named above and further non-explicilty authorized disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited and will be considered a criminal offense. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited, will be considered a criminal offense, so you must reply to the original sender to inform about this communication and delete it.

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

saku at ytti

Jan 15, 2024, 12:26 AM

Post #5 of 13 (316 views)

Permalink

On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 10:05, jordi.palet--- via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:

> In actual customer deployments I see the same levels, even up to 85% of IPv6 traffic. It basically depends on the usage of the caches and the % of residential vs corporate customers.

You think you are contributing to the IPv6 cause, by explaining how
positive the situation is. But in reality you are damaging it greatly,
because you're not communicating that we are not on a path to IPv4
free Internet. If we had been on such a path, we would have been IPv4
free for more than a decade. And unless we admit we are not on that
path, we will not work to get on that path.

--
++ytti

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

nanog at nanog

Jan 15, 2024, 12:56 AM

Post #6 of 13 (316 views)

Permalink

No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying "in actual deployments", which doesn’t mean that everyone is deploying, we are missing many ISPs, we are missing many enterprises.

Saludos,
Jordi

@jordipalet

> El 15 ene 2024, a las 9:26, Saku Ytti <saku@ytti.fi> escribió:
>
> On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 10:05, jordi.palet--- via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
>
>> In actual customer deployments I see the same levels, even up to 85% of IPv6 traffic. It basically depends on the usage of the caches and the % of residential vs corporate customers.
>
> You think you are contributing to the IPv6 cause, by explaining how
> positive the situation is. But in reality you are damaging it greatly,
> because you're not communicating that we are not on a path to IPv4
> free Internet. If we had been on such a path, we would have been IPv4
> free for more than a decade. And unless we admit we are not on that
> path, we will not work to get on that path.
>
> --
> ++ytti

**********************************************
IPv4 is over
Are you ready for the new Internet ?
http://www.theipv6company.com
The IPv6 Company

This electronic message contains information which may be privileged or confidential. The information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s) named above and further non-explicilty authorized disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited and will be considered a criminal offense. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited, will be considered a criminal offense, so you must reply to the original sender to inform about this communication and delete it.

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

saku at ytti

Jan 15, 2024, 1:09 AM

Post #7 of 13 (314 views)

Permalink

On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 10:59, jordi.palet--- via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:

> No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying "in actual deployments", which doesn’t mean that everyone is deploying, we are missing many ISPs, we are missing many enterprises.

Because of low entropy of A-B pairs in bps volume, seeing massive
amounts of IPv6 in IPv6 enabled networks is not indicative of IPv6
success. I don't disagree with your assertion, I just think it's
damaging, because readers without context will form an idea that
things are going smoothly. We should rightly be in panic mode and
forget all the IPv4 extension crap and start thinking how do we ensure
IPv6 happens and how do we ensure we get back to single stack
Internet.

IPv6 is very much an afterthought, a 2nd class citizen today. You can
deploy new features and software without IPv6, and it's fine. IPv6 can
be broken, and it's not an all-hands-on-deck problem, no one is
calling.

--
++ytti

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

chris at thesysadmin

Jan 15, 2024, 2:05 AM

Post #8 of 13 (314 views)

Permalink

I strongly disagree that IPv6 is very much an afterthought.

A perfect example is that in Australia, our largest mobile network provider
Telstra, has completely moved to IPv6 single-stack on their mobile network
for pre-paid and post-paid customers. Russell Langton made the announcement
in February 2020 that Telstra was making the transition and they have since
completed this transition. T-Mobile US also went single-stack back in 2014.
India, with a population of 1.43 billion people (accounting for 17% of the
world's population, sits at 81.24% capable, 80.71% preferred.

With a global rate of 36.49% IPv6 capable and 35.61% IPv6 preferred, we
still have a long way to go however our current achievements to-date should
be commended.

Regards,
Christopher Hawker

Links:
https://lists.ausnog.net/pipermail/ausnog/2020-February/043869.html
https://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/2014/case-study-t-mobile-us-goes-ipv6-only-using-464xlat/
https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6

On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 20:09, Saku Ytti <saku@ytti.fi> wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 10:59, jordi.palet--- via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
> wrote:
>
> > No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying "in actual deployments", which
> doesn’t mean that everyone is deploying, we are missing many ISPs, we are
> missing many enterprises.
>
> Because of low entropy of A-B pairs in bps volume, seeing massive
> amounts of IPv6 in IPv6 enabled networks is not indicative of IPv6
> success. I don't disagree with your assertion, I just think it's
> damaging, because readers without context will form an idea that
> things are going smoothly. We should rightly be in panic mode and
> forget all the IPv4 extension crap and start thinking how do we ensure
> IPv6 happens and how do we ensure we get back to single stack
> Internet.
>
> IPv6 is very much an afterthought, a 2nd class citizen today. You can
> deploy new features and software without IPv6, and it's fine. IPv6 can
> be broken, and it's not an all-hands-on-deck problem, no one is
> calling.
>
> --
> ++ytti
>

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

mike at mtcc

Jan 15, 2024, 10:49 AM

Post #9 of 13 (313 views)

Permalink

On 1/15/24 12:56 AM, jordi.palet--- via NANOG wrote:
> No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying "in actual deployments", which
> doesn’t mean that everyone is deploying, we are missing many ISPs, we
> are missing many enterprises.

I don't think what's going on internally with enterprise needs to change
much if they just gatewayed to a v6 upstream instead of v4 at the border
if they were given that option. The problem has always been with ISP's
and routers. When v6 first started to percolate (early 90's) i looked at
it for my embedded OS and the projects that used it and didn't figure it
would take much effort to implement it. So for hosts i really don't
think that was a roadblock. But if hosts don't have something upstream
to sink v6 traffic and especially to access the public internet there's
not much incentive to implement it or deploy it. ISP's used the excuse
that routers didn't implement it which was definitely a huge problem but
as it turns out it was still an excuse since a lot has changed in the
last 20 years and still rollout continues at a glacial pace.

I think one of the more encouraging trends are ISP's and enterprises
switching over to v6 internally as a cost saving measure to not run a
dual network. Aren't Comcast and Facebook examples?

It's sort of disturbing that there are still people on this list that
want to relitigate something that happened 30 years ago. that reeks of
religion not tech. By all means, set up CGNAT's in a pique.

Mike

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

mike at mtcc

Jan 15, 2024, 11:05 AM

Post #10 of 13 (313 views)

Permalink

On 1/15/24 12:26 AM, Saku Ytti wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 10:05, jordi.palet--- via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
>
>> In actual customer deployments I see the same levels, even up to 85% of IPv6 traffic. It basically depends on the usage of the caches and the % of residential vs corporate customers.
> You think you are contributing to the IPv6 cause, by explaining how
> positive the situation is. But in reality you are damaging it greatly,
> because you're not communicating that we are not on a path to IPv4
> free Internet. If we had been on such a path, we would have been IPv4
> free for more than a decade. And unless we admit we are not on that
> path, we will not work to get on that path.
>
An ipv4 free network would be nice, but is hardly needed. There will
always be a long tail of ipv4 and so what? You deal with it at your
borders as a piece of non-recurring engineering and that is that. The
mobile operators model seems to be working pretty well for them and
seems likely that it is an opex cost down for them since they don't have
to run two networks internally nor deal with the cost of ipv4 subnets
(or at least not as much? not sure how it exactly works). Worrying about
whether ipv4 will ever go away misses the point, imo.

Mike

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

saku at ytti

Jan 15, 2024, 11:02 PM

Post #11 of 13 (312 views)

Permalink

On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 21:08, Michael Thomas <mike@mtcc.com> wrote:

> An ipv4 free network would be nice, but is hardly needed. There will
> always be a long tail of ipv4 and so what? You deal with it at your

I mean Internet free DFZ, so that everyone is not forced to maintain
two stacks at extra cost, fragility and time. Any protocols at the
inside networks are fine, as long as you're meeting the Internet with
IPv6-only stack. I'm sure there are CLNS, IPX, AppleTalk etc networks
there, but that doesn't impose a cost to everyone wanting to play.

--
++ytti

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

mike at mtcc

Jan 16, 2024, 10:21 AM

Post #12 of 13 (311 views)

Permalink

On 1/15/24 11:02 PM, Saku Ytti wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 21:08, Michael Thomas <mike@mtcc.com> wrote:
>
>> An ipv4 free network would be nice, but is hardly needed. There will
>> always be a long tail of ipv4 and so what? You deal with it at your
> I mean Internet free DFZ, so that everyone is not forced to maintain
> two stacks at extra cost, fragility and time. Any protocols at the
> inside networks are fine, as long as you're meeting the Internet with
> IPv6-only stack. I'm sure there are CLNS, IPX, AppleTalk etc networks
> there, but that doesn't impose a cost to everyone wanting to play.
>
Um, so what? There is lots of cruft the world over that would be better
if it finally died. Somehow we keep on. It's just a cost of doing
business. If mobile operators can support it with their millions or even
billions of customers, I think everybody else can too. It's not like
ipv4 address depletion is a static problem either -- it's only going to
get worse as time goes on so it's what's really driving opex where v6 is
pretty much a one-off investment in comparison i'd think.

Mike

Re: IPv6 Traffic Re: IPv6? Re: Where to Use 240/4 Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block [ In reply to ]

nanog at nanog

Jan 16, 2024, 2:51 PM

Post #13 of 13 (311 views)

Permalink

> On Jan 14, 2024, at 19:50, Abraham Y. Chen <aychen@avinta.com> wrote:
>
> Hi, Ryan:
>
> 1) " ... it accounts for 40% of the traffic at Google. ":
>
> Perhaps you were referring to the following?
>
> https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

>
> 2) If so, your quotation is correct, except there are some hidden stories below the surface:
>
> A. When you Google for it with key words "IPv6 Traffic Google", the first hit shows "IPv6 Adoption" that lead to the above. So, strictly speaking, it is not traffic data that you are looking at.

Correct, that graph shows fraction of google unique end points that have IPv6 capability. It does not reflect traffic at all.

> B. Above the actual graph, you will find statements, such as " ... the availability of IPv6 connectivity among Google users. ...." So, legally, the graph is correct on its own right, but may not be exactly what you thought. Reader be aware!

Correct… I do not know of a graph showing traffic as a percentage for google.

> It implies that the graph the IPv6 capability (equipment readiness) of Google users, not necessarily the actual traffic they generate. The two do not equate to each other.

No, it shows actual IPv6 reachable, not equipment capability. Likely there is some relatively close degree of correlation between fraction of users and fraction of traffic, but you are correct that they are independent numbers. It’s entirely possible, I suppose, that that 45% of endpoints reachable via IPv6 represents 10% of Google traffic and doesn’t really use Google very much at all. OTOH, it’s equally likely that 45% of end points is actually responsible for 90% of Google traffic. I doubt that either of these extremes is likely, however.

In many ways, however, the fact that 45% of eyeball endpoints have IPv6 reachability is much more meaningful than whatever random fraction of traffic they happen to represent.

>
> 3) However, the above did seem to support what was generally said in the public. Until, we found an interesting ongoing (the only one of such resource that is updated about every ten minutes) statistics by AMS-IX (AMSterdam Internet eXchange) :
>
> https://stats.ams-ix.net/sflow/ipv6.html
>
> https://stats.ams-ix.net/sflow/ether_type.html
> a
> The second URL shows that IPv6 accounts for approximately 5.7% of the overall Internet traffic that AMS-IX sees today. If one traces back through the archived data, the earlier numbers were even much lower. In fact, those graphs looked meaningless, because there was hardly any visible trace colored for IPv6. This has been going on for at least the last one decade. So, it could not be an error.

This isn’t a surprise since the vast majority of Google’s (and most other content providers) traffic is delivered via private network interconnect and not on public peering points.

> 4) We contacted AMS-IX for a possible explanation of the obvious discrepancy. They politely referred us to our own ISPs. This triggered our curiosity. We decided that we needed to find the full world-wide IPv6 traffic data.
>
> 5) There was an annual world-wide Internet traffic statistics and forecast published by Cisco that stopped after 2017 (see URL below to the last issue). We contacted Cisco in 2020 and got an eMail confirmation.
>
> https://cloud.report/Resources/Whitepapers/eea79d9b-9fe3-4018-86c6-3d1df813d3b8_white-paper-c11-741490.pdf

If you dig deeper on that, you’ll find that their data is purely estimated based on very limited collection.

> 6) However, there has never been any equivalent publication for the IPv6 by itself that we could locate.

There is an interesting bit of data from Akamai in this post:
https://www.akamai.com/blog/trends/10-years-since-world-ipv6-launch#:~:text=Akamai%27s%20IPv6%20traffic%20levels%20and%20client%20base&text=As%20of%20May%202022%2C%20Akamai%27s,years%20ago%20in%20February%202020.

Which reports that 2022 Akamai IPv6 traffic was over 41Tbps, up from just over 1Gbps in 2012.

While IPv4 has grown in that same 10 years, I doubt that it has grown 4,100,000% in that same 10 years.

> 7) In search for a possible explanation of the discrepancy between Pts. 1) & 3), we came across the following article. In brief, it reported that the Peering agreements among Internet backbone providers were less settled for IPv6 than IPv4. Thus, higher percentage of IPv6 traffic than that of IPv4 should have been directed through the IXs (Internet eXchanges), such as AMS-IX.
>
> https://www.theregister.com/2018/08/28/ipv6_peering_squabbles/

1. This is largely untrue today. Most IPv6 capable networks that peer on a public exchange with another IPv6 capable network set up sessions for v4 and v6 at the same time.

2. There’s a much more plausible explanation… Most of the big eyeball networks and most of the big content providers don’t deliver much of their traffic via public exchanges, yet they are the ones most likely to have IPv6 capability. While Akamai, for example, delivers a lot of traffic over Ams-IX, it’s mostly not to major eyeball networks which instead connect to Akamai over private peering. This artificially suppresses the IX perspective on the fraction of traffic that is IPv6 overall.

>
> 8) The conclusion of Pt. 7) furthered our puzzlement, because it was opposite to what we were hoping for. That is, the roughly 5.7% IPv6 traffic that AMS-IX sees implies that within the overall Internet, the IPv6 traffic should be even less than 5.7%, not as high as Google's 40+% (Adoption) rate. Since we did not have the resources to further the research on this topic, we saved the above summary to share with anyone interested in pursuing for a better understanding. It will be much appreciated, if you could share your insights of this topic.

Well, the good news (see my second point in response to 7) is that it’s likely much larger than what you see on the exchange points, as you hoped.

According to CloudFlare in this article: https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/13/cloudflare_internet_traffic_2023/

1. 1/3rd (33.75%) of all internet traffic is IPv6.
2. 1/3rd of requests that could traverse IPv6 are being served on IPv4.

If both of those statements are true, then it indicates (theoretically) that turning off IPv4 tomorrow would be nearly lossless.
(33.75% * 3 = 101.25%).

I tend to suspect that the numbers might be a little off here, but the point remains that the amount of the internet that doesn’t work on IPv4 continues to shrink and at some point, the benefit of maintaining v4 will drop below its cost.

The sooner we reach that point, the less pain everyone will have to endure between now and getting there.

Owen