On 15/12/2008, at 5:23 PM, Cameron Kerr wrote:
IPv6 supports a much larger pool of addresses, enough to assign an IP address to each grain of sand in a fine layer covering the entire planet.
Does anyone else get really fed up with this analogy? Given that addresses aren't used contiguously its a really pointless thing to say; its more likely to engender thoughts of "why?" rather than "cool, must have". Better, I think, to say things like "IPv6 will enable people to easily create a home network environment with your computers, printers, personal communications devices, home theatre etc. [ie. auto-configuration], communicate and share with others using rich media [ie. no NAT] and make it more affordable to create rich content [ie. multicast, hopefully]... all without needing your ask your neighborhood geek."
People can do that with IPv4. IPv6 doesn't bring any new features to the network, so claiming that it does makes people who know this go "yeah, whatever". Addressing is not preventing those applications from existing today. IPv6 is just a nice NAT traversal API.
If you really wanted to have a "grains of sand" sort of analogy, it would be more useful to say something like "IPv6 will have enough addresses [well, address space] to allow every person [that ever lived? --- I haven't checked this] a large network of their own."
Perhaps. It's all just a way of saying "lots", I don't think how we say it is particularly important. -- Nathan Ward