JP’s topsy-turvy 2009 IT year in review
11 Dec 2009
This time of year is a great time to reflect upon the last 12 months and see what has occurred as well as discuss the impact of the events on this year and next.
Here’s one that my sources say to keep an eye on, IPv6. IPv6 is the next generation Internet Protocol. Many service providers will be switching to this standard soon because it provides them much more control over the number of Internet devices they can directly address and fixes many of the issues of IPv4. However, many of the IPv6 protocol stacks are new and have not been tested under full stress of a production environment. If you remember, it took Microsoft something like ten years to get their IP stack to a point where it was robust and mature. The IP stack is at the heart of every device that connects to the Internet. Changing this protocol is going to be slow and painful, but not changing soon is going to cause major disruptions in service as service providers are forced to use IPv6->IPv4 conversion, which at gigabit speeds is tedious and adds latency, not to mention that it will add overhead to the router for maintenance of multiple tables and increases memory consumption.
More from WLDJ…
