We have networks and businesses to run. Why are we rehashing this yet again?
For example, in December 200l http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/2007-12/msg00280.html shows messages regarding exactly this issue. for emphasis I redundantly requote, "You have seen this before from me: Consider the Customer/Business Management viewpoint, not just that of routing packets around between boxes. Pull your head out of your patch panel and look at all the business requirements. If you can show me a more cost effective way to distribute all the parameters mentioned here to all end systems, I'll support it. In the meantime, don't use religious arguments to prevent me from using whatever is appropriate to manage my business. I'll even use NAT boxes, if there is no equivalently affordable stateful firewall box!"
Just in case the URL is faulty, here is the primary content of the referenced page of NANOG list history:
And, besides the list forwarded below,
Designated printers,
Preferred DNS Servers,
and, maybe, more.
Even in a large enterprise, the ratio of "routers" to DHCP servers makes control of many end system parameters via DHCP a management win compared to configuration of "routers" with this "non-network core" data. (In case I was to abstruse, It is cheaper to maintain end system parameters in a smaller number of DHCP servers than in a larger number of "routers".)
This is completely separate from the fact that many experienced router engineers are smart enough configure routers with NTP server addresses in preference to DNS names, and likewise for many other parameters.
The end system population has requirements which respond much more dynamically to business requirements than do router configurations, which respond mostly to wiring configurations which are, by comparison, static. The statement that DHCP is not needed for IPv6 packet routing may well be exactly accurate. The absence of good DHCP support in IPv6 has costly consequences for enterprise management, of which IP routing is a small part.
You have seen this before from me: Consider the Customer/Business Management viewpoint, not just that of routing packets around between boxes. Pull your head out of your patch panel and look at all the business requirements. If you can show me a more cost effective way to distribute all the parameters mentioned here to all end systems, I'll support it. In the meantime, don't use religious arguments to prevent me from using whatever is appropriate to manage my business. I'll even use NAT boxes, if there is no equivalently affordable stateful firewall box!
Cutler