Re: If past ipv6 articles are anything to go by...
Or less efficient. v4 has a nice, fixed packet structure. So a 32bit address field. v6 uses 128bits, so 4x larger.
Nice try there - cite one feature to support an erroneous statement about another.
The thing is, there are efficiencies in IPv6 by fixing the header format as it does. For example, the hop counter is included in the CRC in IPv4 meaning that it needs to be recalculated on every hop - while in IPv6 it's excluded for efficiency. The extension headers shouldn't need to be checked for routing unless you are doing something quite esoteric and probably won't be present in the majority of traffic anyway - so they are unlikely to have any impact on routing tables.
And considering that I was using 32 bit addresses back in the days of dial up modems, adding an extra 192 bits to a packet isn't a major issue for most* users. I don't recall too many complaints that the 64 bits of source-address per packet was a problem back then, any more than the 256 bits in IPv6 is today (for most* users).
* Yes, there will always be some site somewhere stuck with a 1200/75 dial up modem**. But they are unlikely to be connecting directly to the internet and there are various proxy techniques that would allow them to carry on as they are.
** OK, suitably antique spec chosen for dramatic effect - but you know exactly what I mean.
And memory usage is not an issue either. Memory capacities have increase many orders of magnitude, and quite frankly, it's hard to find small memory chips these days that were "cutting edge" only a few years ago.
And accessing 128 bit addresses need not take longer either - as well as memory getting bigger, we've had a many-fold increase in memory widths. So a 32 bit address meant 4 accesses on an 8 bit system, 2 on a 32 bit system, and you had to be up to a 32 bit system before it because a single access. 64 bit systems are quite common these days, so still only 2 accesses. And don't forget that a lot of what you pay for in "proper" router gear (vs doing it in software) is custom hardware to do the routing table lookup and packet forwarding. So yes, new hardware required, but that's going to have hardware to handle 128 bits address in the same time (well faster now with newer silicon) as older hardware handled 32 bit addresses.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
