IPv6 Act Now

The world will run out of internet IP addresses in less than a year because of the explosion in smartphones, experts have warned. Inaction by internet providers could lead to broken applications and more expensive net connections.

IP addresses do not refer to website domain names, but the unique sequence of numbers used to identify each computer, website or other internet-connected device. The protocol used by the majority of web users, known as IPv4, provides only about four billion IP addresses. Currently there are only about 232 million IP addresses left which is enough for about 340 days only, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

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Cisco today announced that the Conseil Régional de Basse-Normandie (CRBN) has deployed Cisco Unified Communications Manager, running the new version of Internet Protocol (IPv6), to simplify its communications infrastructure. The deployments will facilitate the implementation of new IPv6-based collaboration applications and services and help improve operational efficiency. The new system will operate with the council’s VIKMAN research and education network, which uses the IPv6 protocol to provide a high-speed Internet connection between all of the region’s research and training sites. CRBN is one of the first councils to deploy the latest version of Cisco Unified Communications Manager, running IPv6.

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The RIPE NCC has posted a second article on IPv6 “ripeness” on the RIPE Labs website. Following on from the initial study (which focused on LIR’s IPv6 readiness by country), the new article looks at the IPv6 readiness of LIRs in the RIPE NCC service region, based on age, size and industry sector.

Read more on RIPE Labs…

In less than 18 months there will be no more big blocks of net addresses to give out, estimates suggest.

Predictions name 9 September 2011 as the date on which the last of those tranches is released for net firms and others to use.

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In its 2008 action plan for the deployment of the Future Internet Protocol in Europe, the European Commission is calling for the inclusion of relevant technology knowledge in retraining curricula and in higher education computer and network engineering courses. To support this action, the European Commission, Directorate F – Information Society and Media Unit F4, has just launched a new study aimed at evaluating the current landscape (needs and offer) in the field of the Future Internet Protocols training.

If you are in an organisation providing training and courses in the field of Information Technologies or if you are an organisation making use of IT in its daily activity, you are invited to take the TRICE survey. By answering the survey questions, you will be contributing to the definition of recommendations aimed at developing a European landscape for IT training in line with your needs.

More info

If your business relies at all on the internet, then you’d better get up to speed on IPv6 – if you don’t, your customers won’t be able to reach you. What does IPv6 mean for business, how much time is left before the transition and how do businesses prepare?

Pundits have warned of the impending shortage of IPv4 address space for some time, but these warnings have largely fallen on deaf ears. Those ears had better prick up soon, because now is the time to consider the impact of IPv6 on your business.

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For telecom service providers, the transition from IP Version 4 (IPv4) to IPv6 has been a long time in coming — many have been planning for the change for more than a decade, and most have been IPv6-ready in the core of their networks for a couple of years now, offering IPv6 services to those interested.

But for enterprises, the picture has been very different. The primary driver to IPv6 — the diminishing pool of IPv4 network addresses — has been largely offset by the proliferation of Network Address Translation (NAT) technology that has enabled multiple endpoints to share IP addresses. Since most business applications don’t use IPv6, the transition to this new Internet addressing scheme has often seemed to lose any sense of urgency.

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The National Insitute Of Standards And Technology (NIST) announces the public comment release of Special Publication (SP) 800-119, Guidelines for the Secure Deployment of IPv6. IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is the next generation Internet Protocol, accommodating vastly increased address space. This document describes and analyzes IPv6’s new and expanded protocols, services, and capabilities, including addressing, DNS, routing, mobility, quality of service, multihoming, and IPsec.

Read the document and comment here.

Sheng Jiang (Huawei) and Brian Carpenter (University of Auckland, research consultant to Huawei) are currently running a questionnaire on IPv6 deployment, addressed to every ISP. The purpose is to provide facts for a document about deployment scenarios that we are drafting for discussion in the IETF.

All responses will be kept strictly confidential and the study’s authors will publish only combined results, with no information about individual ISPs in any published results. You can also request that neither you, nor your ISP, be mentioned in the acknowledgments.

Please find the questionnaire at
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~brian/ISP-v6-QQ.html

Answers are requested ASAP.

TOKYO, Dec 21, 2009 (The Yomiuri Shimbun – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — The trading of Internet Protocol addresses is expected to be permitted here by the end of next year as a measure against a possible worldwide shortage of IP addresses within the next two years, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

By allowing IP addresses to be traded, the industry is hoping that addresses currently going unused will be brought back into the fold.

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