IPv6 Act Now

The Number Resource Organization (NRO) announced today that the free pool of available IPv4 addresses is now fully depleted. On Monday, January 31, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated two blocks of IPv4 address space to APNIC, the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for the Asia Pacific region, which triggered a global policy to allocate the remaining IANA pool equally between the five RIRs. Today IANA allocated those blocks. This means that there are no longer any IPv4 addresses available for allocation from the IANA to the five RIRs.

IANA assigns IPv4 addresses to the RIRs in blocks that equate to 1/256th of the entire IPv4 address space. Each block is referred to as a “/8” or “slash-8”. A global policy agreed on by all five RIR communities and ratified in 2009 by ICANN, the international body responsible for the IANA function, dictated that when the IANA IPv4 free pool reached five remaining /8 blocks, these blocks were to be simultaneously and equally distributed to the five RIRs.

“This is an historic day in the history of the Internet, and one we have been anticipating for quite some time,” states Raúl Echeberría, Chairman of the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the official representative of the five RIRs. “The future of the Internet is in IPv6. All Internet stakeholders must now take definitive action to deploy IPv6.”

“This is truly a major turning point in the on-going development of the Internet,” said Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Nobody was caught off guard by this, the Internet technical community has been planning for IPv4 depletion for quite some time. But it means the adoption of IPv6 is now of paramount importance, since it will allow the Internet to continue its amazing growth and foster the global innovation we’ve all come to expect.”

IPv6 is the “next generation” of the Internet Protocol, providing a hugely expanded address space and allowing the Internet to grow into the future. “Billions of people world wide use the Internet for everything from sending tweets to paying bills. The transition to IPv6 from IPv4 represents an opportunity for even more innovative applications without the fear of running out of essential Internet IP addresses,” said Vice President of IANA Elise Gerich.

Adoption of IPv6 is now vital for all Internet stakeholders. The RIRs have been working with network operators at the local, regional, and global level for more than a decade to offer training and advice on IPv6 adoption and ensure that everyone is prepared for the exhaustion of IPv4.

“Each RIR will have its final full /8 from IANA, plus any existing IP address holdings to distribute. Depending on address space requests received, this could last each RIR anywhere from a few weeks to many months. It’s only a matter of time before the RIRs and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must start denying requests for IPv4 address space. Deploying IPv6 is now a requirement, not an option,” added Echeberría. IPv6 address space has been available since 1999. Visit http://www.nro.net/ipv6/ for more information on IPv6, or your local RIR for information on how to get address space.

A group of internet engineers and technical staff is helping the Middle East to prepare for new internet technology that will ensure there is enough room for millions more internet addresses as the region’s virtual world expands.

After laying the original groundwork in Dubai to form the Middle East Network Operators’ Group (Menog), the group has hosted a series of regional forums since 2007 to help government and network operators grasp the latest trends in technology.

One of the big challenges looming is that the number of internet addresses is running out of space under the older IPv4 internet protocol, which allows for about 4 billion websites and other devices. IPv6 will allow for approximately 340 undecillion (which is a 34 followed by 35 zeros) addresses. Menog is trying to educate professionals on the best way to handle the seismic shift to a bigger proverbial house with ample room for the future.

More from Gulf News…

Olivier Crepin-Leblond from the Internet Society chapter in England recently announced the results of an “IPv6 crawler” tool they designed and implemented. This tool trawls through the DNS to detect IPv6 compliant servers, producing results that can be viewed on an “IPv6 Matrix”, showing IPv6 penetration on geographical maps.

More on RIPE Labs…

Internet policymakers and industry leaders are hailing the Obama Administration’s plan to upgrade all federal Web sites and e-government services over the next two years to support IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet’s main communications protocol. More at Computerworld…

Yes, you can get by without it, but probably not for long. Adopting the new IPv6 protocols will be a challenge, and there are ways to work around the shortage of IPv4 addresses, such as Network Address Translation, or NAT. So why bother to make the move? Because any workarounds eventually will get in the way of new services and devices, and the rest of the world will pass by those who do not adapt.

“It returns us to the original design of the Internet — any device to address any other device,” said Bill Crowell, former deputy director of the National Security Agency and now a member of BlueCat Networks’ technical advisory board for the federal market.

NAT has extended the life of IPv4 and can add some security by shielding the network from prying eyes on the outside, but it also can interfere with functionality. The isolation imposed on islands of IPv4-only functionality will grow as more services and devices are enabled with the new protocols.

More from Government Computer News…

European Commission funded survey finds 25% of ISPs now offer IPv6 services to consumers

Organizations recognize IPv6 helps them stay ahead of competition but misconceptions around the cost of deployment are delaying adoption

The Number Resource Organization (NRO), the official representative of the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) that oversee the allocation of all Internet number resources, today unveils the findings of a global, independent survey into organizations’ IPv6 readiness. Funded by the European Commission and conducted by GNKS Consult and TNO, the study reveals that the majority of organizations are taking steps toward IPv6 deployment, as the IPv4 address pool continues to deplete rapidly.

IP addresses are critical for the operation of the Internet. Every Internet-enabled device needs an IP address to connect to the rest of the network. The biggest threat facing the Internet today is that less than 6% of the current form of IP addresses, IPv4, remains and the pool is likely to be completely depleted next year. This means that organizations need to adopt IPv6, the next-generation addressing protocol. There is a far larger pool of IPv6 addresses, allowing for more devices to connect to the Internet and helping to safeguard the sustainable growth of the Internet.

The survey, which polled over 1,500 organizations from 140 countries, highlights that organizations are increasingly aware of the need to deploy IPv6: approximately 84% already have IPv6 addresses or have considered requesting them from the RIRs. Only 16% of respondents have no plans to deploy IPv6 addresses.

The study also demonstrates that there are some misconceptions around the cost of adopting IPv6. Over half of all respondents noted that the cost of deployment was a major barrier for IPv6 adoption. While organizations might delay investing in IPv6, this may ultimately result in greater costs, with last-minute deployment and poor planning likely to increase the investment required.

Of the 84% of respondents that have requested IPv6 addresses or have considered doing so, three-quarters reported the need to stay ahead of competition as the main reason for IPv6 adoption. Half of these respondents also noted that a lack of available IPv4 space was a major driver for deployment. When asked about issues they had encountered when deploying IPv6:

• 60% cited the lack of vendor support as a major barrier for deployment. However, most of the latest hardware and software support IPv6. The RIRs are strongly urging organizations to check with their suppliers to ensure that the technologies they use are IPv6 compatible.
• 45% reported a struggle to find knowledgeable technical staff to support deployment. However, all five RIRs arrange technical training to facilitate an efficient IPv6 deployment, details of which can be accessed via the NRO website.

58% of all organizations polled were ISPs. It is likely that respondents to this survey are further ahead in IPv6 deployment than ISPs overall, but all organizations should ensure that their ISP offers or plans to offer services over IPv6. Out of the polled ISPs:

• Approximately 60% already offer, or plan to offer within the next year, IPv6 to consumers.
• 70% already offer, or plan to offer within the next year, IPv6 to businesses.
• Only about 10% of polled ISPs have no plans to offer IPv6 to consumers or businesses.

Axel Pawlik, Chairman of the NRO, comments: “It’s great to see that as we move toward complete IPv4 exhaustion, more organizations worldwide are waking up to the need to adopt IPv6 and are sourcing IPv6 addresses from the RIRs.

“Yet there is still a distinct lack of Internet traffic over the next addressing protocol, with not enough ISPs offering IPv6 services and 30% of ISPs saying the proportion of this traffic is less than 0.5%. It’s critical that ISPs now take the next step in the global adoption effort by offering IPv6 services to their customers to help boost traffic over IPv6.”

Per Blixt, Head of Unit in the Information Society and Medias at the European Commission, says: “It’s encouraging to see that so many organizations have made IPv6 adoption their priority. Still, as the Internet becomes increasingly important for global socio-economic development, it’s critical that those who are still sitting on the fence act now on IPv6. Only by ensuring that all organizations adopt IPv6 can we ensure the sustainable growth of the digital economy worldwide.”

This survey is a follow-up to a study conducted in 2009 amongst organizations in Europe, Middle East and parts of Central Asia, as well as Asia Pacific; however this year’s survey polled organizations worldwide.

The full research report is available here.

The IPv6 Forum Ready Logo Program Committee releases a new program: the IPv6 Education Certification Logo Program. This program defines and certifies courses, engineers and trainers with Silver & Gold Logo levels and requires IPv6 implementation on the web site of the education program.

A recent survey on IPv6 training and studies at universities and vendors has demonstrated that IPv6 training and courses are way too embryonic to have any critical impact. It is estimated that some 20 million engineers are working on the current Internet worldwide at ISPs, corporate and all other public and private organizations and they will need quality training on IPv6.

More at the IPv6 Forum.

The [US] Navy is ahead of the curve as the Defense Department gradually converts over to IP Version 6 from the current protocol, IPv4. While the government, the private sector and much of the world has been slowly transitioning to IPv6 for almost a decade, the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific has been operating a fully integrated IPv6 environment on a daily basis since 2003.

Lessons learned from the center’s operation will help other government agencies and commercial organizations make an easier transition to IPv6, said Ron Broersma, SPAWAR’s enterprise network security manager and chief information technology division engineer. A major transition to IPv6 will soon begin, as the number of IPv4 Internet addresses is expected to run out sometime in 2012, if not sooner. IPv4 uses the familair four sets of three numbers each to define an IP address, allowing for only about 4.3 billion unique addresses. IPv6 uses a much larger address space, and offers a near-unlimited number.

More from Government Computing News…

India will start using IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) from March 2012, according to a new roadmap released by the Indian government.

All telecom and ISPs will have to be IPv6-compliant by the end of next year and offer IPv6 services thereafter, the government said in a statement issued on Wednesday by the country’s Press Information Bureau.

Federal and state government ministries and departments and public sector companies will switch over to IPv6 services by March 2012, the government said.

More from PCWorld…

By offering public and private IPv6 addresses, Qwest (NYSE: Q) is cashing in on the emerging opportunity to help enterprise and government agencies make their respective transitions from IPv4 to IPv6 addressing.

Current Qwest iQ networking service customers will be able to leverage the new IPv6 capabilities, including built-in security and its “near-endless” supply of IP addresses. Customers can run IPv4 and/or IPv6 addresses via either a dual stack or native IPv6 modes.

More from Fierce Telecom…