[ipv6-wg] IPv6-only network during RIPE 71

Marco,

My impression is that you are representing the RIPE NCC's
(semi-)official stance on this subject, so even though I am addressing
this to you my mail is really intended to be towards the company.

tl;dr Don't so cautious. Removing the "experimental" tag from IPv6 won't
      ruin the RIPE meeting.

On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 11:30:27 +0100
Marco Hogewoning <marcoh at marcoh.net> wrote:

> > Marco, Nick - what do you think? I definitely see a lot of interest
> > and support in the community for moving IPv6-only
> > network out of the experimental state. Probably moving dual-stack
> > network to legacy this meeting might be bit extreme (we do care about
> > people who do not care about Ipv6 yet, don't we? ;)) and we do not
> > provide bad network experience), but what about stop calling it
> > "experimental" and include it in the list of the standard SSIDs?  

...
 
> Our primary concern is that within the resource constraints we have
> on staff time and expertise, we cannot offer detailed support to end
> users, who are experiencing problems. We are aware that several
> techniques exist to remedy some of the expected problems with client
> software, but these appear not universally available across all
> clients. Also none of these solutions have been tested in the
> specific environment of the RIPE meeting network.

Honestly, I think that the RIPE NCC is being way too cautious. The
remedy in all cases is simply "pick this other SSID". 

Really, it's that simple!

Even the most technically inept users are experienced with selecting
alternate WiFi networks.

I suppose there may be users who really, REALLY want to debug their
setup (perhaps they are tired of their corporate VPN not working over
IPv6-only, or something like that). In that case, the RIPE NCC
certainly has no responsibility to work with these people, unless the
company wants to and has spare resources. (There will be RIPE
participants who are willing to help, so such people might be able to
fix their setups with assistance from enthusiastic experts.)

> However we must also insist that, at this stage, that there must be
> no confusion with the primary dual stack network, which is supported
> by RIPE NCC staff.

I am  having a kind of déjà vu with IPv6 World Day, where there was a
terror of the flood of user problems and how help-desks would be
overwhelmed with all of the issues.


Given:

1. I do not expect many problems, and 
2. The fix on the user side is trivial.

I find the RIPE NCC's position unreasonable.


[ Warning: hand-waving financial numerology follows... ]

Lets think about this. If EVERY SINGLE ATTENDEE at RIPE 70 had asked
for help with this, and had to be told to pick a new SSID, maybe say
that would be 522 people for 3 minutes, or about 26 hours. In this
worst-case scenario, the RIPE NCC would have to have a dedicated extra
full time position handling such issues. Lets say 2 people because
user problems would happen in bursts.

I had a look at the number of RIPE NCC staff for the past 4 meetings:

RIPE 67 (Athens):    49
RIPE 68 (Warsaw):    46
RIPE 69 (London):    51
RIPE 70 (Amsterdam): 58

Adding 2 extra people for this work is a <5% increase in the number of
staff attending - assuming the ABSOLUTE WORST DISASTER CASE. I also
note that this +/- 2 people is more than the variation between meetings
anyway - so effectively a rounding error.

(I realize that I am leaving out a lot of costs, and I am very aware
that since I don't represent an LIR I am talking about other people's
money, but I think the analysis is fundamentally correct.)

Note that I am NOT actually encouraging that the RIPE NCC provide such
dedicated staff, but pointing out that if the fear is so paralyzing then
there are easy ways of insuring success.

Cheers,

--
Shane