IPv6 Act Now

Broadband ISP Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) has announced that punters using the Santa-Fe coffee shop in Bracknell for free broadband access, will now do so via Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6). The announcement is unusual because IPv6 generally isn’t a consumer marketable term, preferring instead to work behind the scenes where nobody can see it.

The coffee shop based service assigns an IPv6 address, starting 2001:8B0:CAFE:1344::, automatically, and access to any IPv6 websites or services is available. This works automatically with most operating systems and needs no special configuration.

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Network engineers from Yahoo are pitching what they admit is a “really ugly hack” to the Internet’s Domain Name System, but they say it is necessary for the popular Web content provider to support IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet’s main communications protocol.

Yahoo outlined its proposal for changes to DNS recursive name resolvers at a meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) held here this week.

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The IETF is holding its 77th meeting this week at Anaheim, California. The last meeting saw a huge turnout and the IEFT grabbed this opportunity to promote the new IP protocol, IPv6.

Research has shown that even in small numbers, Internet users are already adapting to the 1995 technology. Geoff Huston of APNIC has recently announced from traffic data in the Asia Pacific that at least 1% of the Internet is using IPv6. Though not much, this is surely a good start. APNIC is the Regional Internet Registry for the Asia Pacific region.

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Leading Web content providers — including Google, Yahoo, Netflix and Microsoft — are conducting early-stage conversations about creating a shared list of customers who can access their Web sites via IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet’s main communications protocol.

The DNS Whitelist for IPv6 would be a list of IP addresses that have functioning IPv6 connectivity. Content providers would use this shared DNS Whitelist to serve up content to these IP addresses via IPv6 rather than through IPv4, which is the current version of the Internet Protocol. Web site visitors not listed on the DNS Whitelist for IPv6 would receive IPv4-based content.

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This week, the IETF is holding its 77th meeting in Anaheim, California. Last year around this time, the IETF met in San Francisco, and the Internet Society took advantage of this large gathering of Internet engineers to promote IPv6 and tell us that that it’s high time to trade in the dusty 1980s Internet Protocol for the shiny 1995 version. Tuesday, the news was that people are actually starting to heed the advice.

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As has been noted again in recent days, some ISPs, vendors and end users have been using previously unallocated IPv4 blocks to address their own networks and devices. When these address blocks become officially allocated or assigned, the prior use can lead to routing problems both for the new holder of the addresses and the person who used them without authorization. This is an unfortunate problem that we have been trying to raise awareness of over the last few years.

In September 2007 I wrote an article about the issue for Cisco’s IP Journal. Over the next few months we conducted some preliminary research into the extent of this usage and presented the preliminary findings at a few network operator meetings.

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The Internet industry is seeing evidence that more consumers, corporations and Web sites are deploying IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet’s main communications protocol, which is known as IPv4. But IPv6 remains a fraction of Internet traffic, and it’s nowhere near where it should be given the rapid depletion of IPv4 addresses.

Comcast, Netflix and APNIC were among the Internet companies and organizations that provided new statistics about IPv6 deployment at an Internet Society panel held here on Tuesday.

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The transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is well underway. Some service providers, such as Comcast, which is several years into this major project, already have slated real production-network trails for 2010.

But there is no ‘hard-stop’ on this transition. That makes it difficult to assess progress, gauge common challenges and point to best practices.

More from Communications Technology…

The ‘IP for Smart Objects’ or ‘IPSO’ Alliance, an organization that holds interoperability tests, documents the use of new Internet Protocol or ‘IP’ based technologies, conducts marketing activities and serves as an information repository for users seeking to understand the role of IP in networks of physical objects, has announced that it has entered a partnership with the IPv6 Forum to promote a common platform of interoperability based on the IPv6 Ready Logo Program, and thereby help in harmonized deployment of Internet of Things or ‘IoT’ based on IPv6.

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Application delivery specialist A10 is tapping into the growing interest in IPv6 by launching a range of migration products aimed at carriers and ISPs looking to help their users move to the new technology.

There’s a growing awareness about IPv6 as registry agencies are beginning to run out of IPv4 addresses and carriers are looking to migrate their customers to the newer technology before the supply of v4 addresses is exhausted – expected to be sometime around the middle of next year.

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