IPv6 Act Now

Will the world end? Will the Internet grind to a screeching halt? Will your computer systems disintegrate into a pile of bits and bytes? In short, no. At least not yet. But you may want to consider a few things.

ISPs aren’t stupid enough to cut off IPv4 access as they begin rolling out IPv6. If they did, only a tiny fraction of websites on the Internet would be accessible at this time because most content providers haven’t yet connected their Internet-accessible systems to the IPv6 Internet. The ISP’s subscribers would revolt, flood the ISP with service calls, and take their business elsewhere.

But this presents an interesting dilemma for ISPs. If the reports of IPv4 shortages are true (and they are), how does a service provider continue to expand its subscriber base? This problem is most acute in Asia where the growing middle class is coming online and ISPs are starting to run out of IPv4 space. America and Europe aren’t far behind.

More from NetworkWorld…

The importance of IPv6 could at last be getting through to ISPs and their business customers, a survey from the Number Resource Organisation (NRO) has found.

The recent snapshot by the NRO (an organisation representing Internet registries) of 1,600 ISPs and businesses across the globe underlines that IPv6 is still a small part of the Internet. But IPv6 advocates inhabit a wing of the Internet industry where even tiny changes can seem important.

Eighty percent of respondents reported either no use of IPv6 or a usage level so small it barely registered, with a small percentage reporting usage of between 1 percent and 2 percent.

More from Techworld…

A senior Internet Society (ISOC) contributor has warned of dire consequences including gradual degradation of the free and open internet that we enjoy today if the world does not start deploying and transitioning to IPv6 as a priority.

Richard Jimmerson is visiting Australia from the US-based international HQ of ISOC to present a keynote address at the Australian IPv6 Summit which was held in Melbourne this week. He said there needs to be “increased urgency” in advancing network compatibility to the new IPv6 internet standards that will extend IP addresses from the 32 bit protocols currently used under IPv4 to an almost inexhaustible protocol based on 128 bits.

More from Computer World…

When we are talking about the transition from one version to another version, we have to understand the need or requirement which is the main reason of the launch of the newer version of anything. IPv4 and IPv6 are Internet Protocol Version 4 and 6 respectively. When we access the internet, we are unaware about the technologies and processes which make it possible for us to access our data and communicate with any other device using internet. The internet is nothing but a web of systems for transmission and transfer of data from one place to another though virtually. Internet protocol is the system which provides you with a specific and unique IP address. The IPv4 has the capacity to provide up to 4.3 billion IP addresses. The need of upgrading from IPv4 to IPv6 was felt when it was understood that the IPv4 is not going to be able to provide the necessary IP addresses in future.

The number that is 4.3 billion seems big, but if we consider the rate of growth and development of internet across the world, then it is evident that this number I not sufficient.

More from EzineMark…

It’s hard to talk standards without covering a standard that touches every piece of IP-based traffic on the planet: Internet Protocol, or IP.

IP addressing is a little like phone numbering, in that it’s subject to number exhaustion. Residents of densely populated cities like New York City are familiar with phone number exhaustion. As more and more people sign up for phone service, area codes run out of numbers, and new area codes are added.

Instead of 10 or 11 digits routing voice traffic to phones at the end of the line however, IP addresses route data packets to networked devices using a different numbering schema. And while there is a logical limit to how many people can inhabit a specific plot of land (in biology, it’s called the carrying capacity), there is no limit to the number of networked devices that can exist.

More from Pipeline Magazine…

Cloudmark is among the first messaging vendors to tackle the vexing issues related to integrating large-scale e-mail services with the next-generation Internet Protocol called IPv6.

Cloudmark offers several IPv6-related features in its e-mail security suite for carriers, government agencies and large multinationals. The suite includes: Cloudmark Gateway, a mail transfer agent; Cloudmark Authority, a message filtering system; and Cloudmark Sender Intelligence, an anti-spam system that uses real-time data from the Cloudmark Global Threat Network to create profiles of good, bad and suspect senders.

The Cloudmark Gateway allows network operators in native IPv6 or dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 environments to transit messages through the messaging server and out to the Internet, which overwhelmingly runs IPv4, the original version of the Internet Protocol.

More from Network World…

Nixu Software is pleased to announce the release of Nixu DHCP Server 2.4 series. The latest addition to Nixu DDI product family introduces new key features such as support for asymmetric DHCP failover, further performance boost, new look and feel and certain IPv6 enhancements. The asymetric DHCP failover model has been specifically designed for customers moving way from Lucent Vital QIP platform, allowing simple migration to Nixu DDI without dramatic changes to existing network architecture.

“Nixu DHCP Server 2.4 Series was developed to facilitate simple migration from Lucent QIP platforms to Nixu DDI” said Juha Holkkola, the Managing Director of Nixu Software. “By supporting asymmetric DHCP failover mechanism, customers can easily replace Lucent QIP without having to change their network architecture. Given the high operating expense associated with Lucent QIP, the payback time of a Nixu DDI investment can be measured in months.”

More from CircleID…

In June of this year, on World IPv6 Day, organisations around the world offered their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour period. The aim was to motivate organisations across the industry – Internet service providers, hardware makers, operating system vendors and web companies – to prepare their services for IPv6. It was also a chance to identify and rectify any problem areas. The day went, broadly speaking, without a hitch and many participants left IPv6 switched on, confirming what we all expected; IPv6 works and adopting IPv6 is not something to be feared.

As many people will know, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated the last remaining blocks of IPv4 addresses equally between the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), the RIPE NCC, APNIC, AfriNIC, LACNIC and ARIN, back in February.

In April, APNIC, the RIR for the Asia Pacific region announced that it had depleted its store of IPv4 addresses, making it the first RIR to do so. This was expected due to the fast rate of technological expansion in the region. Out of necessity, the region has also led the way in IPv6 adoption.

More from ITProPortal…

It’s generally assumed that the growth in mobile connections during the next few years will be great but there are a couple of things that should be noted. One is that this simply isn’t going to happen without a successful rollout of IPv6. Also, even if people average more than one device, the fact that there are only about 6.9 billion people in the world today suggests that the majority of the 24 billion connections will be of the machine-to-machine (M2M) variety.

IPv6 will be needed, of course, simply because there aren’t nearly enough addresses using the old system.

More from ITBusinessEdge…

Geoff, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your history with the development of the internet in Australia, and what you’re up to now?

I stumbled across networking while working at the Australian National University in the 1980’s, and had the opportunity to construct the first national Internet in Australia in the very early 1990’s: the Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet). I’ve been working in the Internet pretty exclusively since then, including a stint at Telstra working on Telstra’s Internet Services and now I work for the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), the folk who manage Internet Protocol addresses in the Asia Pacific Region. I’ve spent a lot of time on IP technology, and have chaired a number of working groups in the Internet Engineering Task Force and also spent some years on the Internet Architecture Board. So I guess I’m pretty familiar with many aspects of the technology of IP!

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