To clarify the post “IPv6 is a Business Continuity Issue” , aka “The Day the Routers Died”, here is a summary of the analysis done by Geoff Huston, Hans-Werner Braun, and many others:

The global BGP routing table is growing near exponentially, threatening an eventual widespread breakdown of Internet backbone router connectivity. With the current routing table size around 269,233 entries on Apr 17, 2008, routing is a race between Moore’s law (how much memory can we put in one router) and the growth of the routing table. The trend was temporarily slowed in 2001 by an aggressive program to utilize Classless Inter Domain Routing (CIDR) and route aggregation to control the growth, and as the small dip in the middle of the chart below shows, that actually made a small difference. Now with the expanded demand for multihoming by end user networks the growth is now near exponential again. When large IPv4 blocks run out in the 2010 to 2011 timeframe, the existing blocks will have to be split and redistributed, further accelerating the growth of the BGP routing table and de-aggregating the existing IPv4 address space.

Seeing the trend and knowing how it ends can be compared to running across a railroad bridge while hearing the train whistle in the distance - you know you better run faster or jump, but you’re not sure how deep the water is or how far away the train really is.   For the sake of millions who depend on the Internet for livelihood, entertainment, and critical operations, we had better get the transition to the next-generation Internet complete and keep assigning IPv6 addresses with good route aggregation in mind before we get hit by the train and all learn to sing that sad song “The Day the Routers Died.”

Sources: Data and BGP report graph obtained from the BGP Autonomous System 6447 report on Thursday Apr 17 03:09:00 2008 (UTC+1000) with graphic generated by the BGP table analyzer program written and maintained by Geoff Huston.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 10:29 pm and is filed under Network Service Providers, Federal Enterprise Architecture, Blog: Migration, Blog: OMB 5-22, Blog: IPv6. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.