Close to the edge: NAT vs. IPv6 just the tip of a larger problem

The debate over whether network address translation (NAT) is beneficial for the Internet or a base heresy destroying its end-to-end principle has read like a sine wave over the years, with periodic peaks of interest followed by relative calm. The orthodox view of the debate is that it has broken down into essentially two camps. The first is those who have championed the fundamentally disruptive architecture of IPv6, which promises greater address space with which to support more devices with fewer intermediary proxies. The second is those who have taken the more short-term, pragmatic, and incremental approach of increasing the number of network connections via NAT over IPv4; this approach provides LANs with one public IP address and numerous internal addresses that are unrecognizable to the network at large. However, as the issue's subplots emerge, these orthodoxies are being exposed as just one element in the larger problem of deploying new applications and new architectures.