Aug
19
WRITTEN BY:
Deryck Rothwell
Thursday, 19 August 2010
As early as 1988, the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) was concerned that at some point in the future we would run out of publicly available internet address space. Since the issue was first identified, predictions have varied widely as to when this address exhaustion will happen, with the end date constantly being pushed back because of developments such as Network Address Translation (NAT) to extend the life of IPv4.
IPv4, version 4 of the Internet Protocol, provides approximately 4 billion internet addresses. Most industry predictions now state that public IPv4 address allocation will be exhausted sometime next year.
During the last few years we have seen an explosion in the demand for IP addresses. This is coming from technologically-expanding countries and from the proliferation of ‘smart’ mobile devices such as
Apple’s iPhone and iPad. The Regional Internet Registry responsible for the allocation of public internet addresses within the Asia Pacific region (
APNIC) is expected to be one of the first to run out, mainly due to the phenomenal demand coming from India and China.
In order to combat this problem, the IETF decided that the long-term solution is Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). IPv6 provides 2
128 IP addresses. As a number, this is written as 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456. Put another way, IPv6 provides roughly 667
sextillion addresses per square metre on Earth.
IPv6 means we wouldn’t run out of internet addresses any time soon!
So if the world is indeed about to run out of public IPv4 address space, why then are so few organisations adopting IPv6?
The main reason seems to be that there is no compelling business case or ‘killer app’ to drive this adoption. There is obviously the larger address space available. There is the ability to include words such as ‘face’, ‘beef’ or even ‘cafe:c0:ffee’ within the IP address (IPv4 uses numerals and full stops only). However, most of the technical benefits being spruiked for IPv6, such as security and mobility, are now integrated in the IPv4 protocol stack anyway.
Why then should you be looking at implementing IPv6 within your organisation? Because IPv6 is inevitable.
What will this mean for you? Well, in some way or another, you will need to make a decision as to how your corporate network will connect to these IPv6 clients. You may decide to outsource this problem to your ISP and hope that its tunnelling and translation techniques don’t break your connections. Or, you can adopt an IPv6 strategy, gain a competitive differentiation over your competitors, and take advantage of the benefits and advances that will flow once IPv6 is adopted more widely.
The next question, of course, is how much will it cost? The answer is: not as much as you think. Most network devices and current operating systems already support IPv6, so it’s unlikely you’ll need an expensive rip-out and replace upgrade.
Developing a strategy now, rather than when the public IPv4 address space runs out, will ensure a cheaper, smoother and more positive IPv6 implementation for both your business and your customers.
Want some further information? Here are some useful links: