[ipv6-wg] IPv6 only network at RIPE 68

> I think the next step would be to leave IPv6 + IPv4 on main RIPE-MTG wifi network, but instead of DNS to start provisioning DNS64 by default.

Just to straighten out things, I am happy to see if we can work together with IT/Ops to progress the current “IPv6 Only Experimental” setup to something less experimental. As per Jen’s suggestion, happy to see if we can get the name changed and while keeping it as a best effort service, see if we can work in slowly bringing this under supervision of the IT department.

In fact, as I mentioned in the closing plenary, during setup we already received a lot of support from the RIPE NCC. Razvan and his crew spend quite a bit of time with Andrew to get things running without any additional hardware. Everything you have been using last week lived on RIPE NCC hardware and it all just switches on and off together with the main network.

I don’t think it is feasible and I’m simply opposing to changing anything on the regular meeting setup. I fully agree that we should eat our own dog food, but I also don’t believe in forcing it down peoples throat.

Over the years even small disruptions in network connectivity have lead to numerous complaints, both in public statements during plenary sessions as well as behind the scenes and on social media. There apparently is a large group of attendees who depend on connectivity or at least believe that they depend on it. This btw is not unique to RIPE Meetings, I’ve observed similar issues in venues such as IETF.

And it is all fine, over the years the IT team has done a great job in providing a network that serves all and at very high service levels. Keep in mind that this all lives in flight cases and is installed on the venue in pretty much 48 hours. I’ve worked in the industry myself for a few years and never seen a greenfield network getting up and running towards somewhere in the 4 nines range as this one.

In simple terms, I don’t want to take the risk. As much as I have confidence in the IT team that will deliver, any small glitch will be looked upon and eventually IPv6 (and this working group) will get the blame. We know stuff doesn’t work<dot> and there will be people who walk into the meeting who are not aware of what is going on and who will have a bad experience.

There are about 25% newcomers at every meeting who may or may not be aware. I would rather provide them a setup where they can try and test at their own convenience and pace, rather than at some critical moment find out stuff doesn’t work and scramble for a backup solution.

That being said, no promises yet. I’ll plan a meeting with the IT team to find out how they feel about this and what is possible. But for now I am not going to suggest to touch on any of the regular meeting setup and suggest to keep the L2 separation as it is, including the preferences.

Marco
(no hats, my own opinion, I’m just as much a ‘customer’ as you all are)