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.

Amsterdam, 18 October 2010 – The Number Resource Organization (NRO) announced today that less than five percent of the world’s IPv4 addresses remain unallocated. APNIC, the Regional Internet Registry for the Asia Pacific region, has been assigned two blocks of IPv4 addresses by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). This latest allocation means that the IPv4 free pool dipped below 10% in January, just nine months ago. Since then, over 200 million IPv4 addresses have been allocated from IANA to the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).

“This is a major milestone in the life of the Internet, and means that allocation of the last blocks of IPv4 to the RIRs is imminent,” states Axel Pawlik, Chairman of the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the official representative of the five RIRs. “It is critical that all Internet stakeholders take definitive action now to ensure the timely adoption of IPv6.”

IPv6 is the “next generation” of the Internet Protocol, providing a hugely expanded address space, which will allow the Internet to grow into the future. In 2010, the five RIRs are expected to allocate over 2,000 IPv6 address blocks, representing an increase of over 70% on the number of IPv6 allocations in 2009. In contrast, the number of IPv4 allocations is expected to grow by only 8% in 2010. These statistics indicate an absence of any last minute ”rush” on IPv4 addresses, and a strong momentum behind the adoption of IPv6.

“The allocation of Internet number resources by the five RIRs enables every region in the world to benefit from fair and equitable distribution of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. We are also actively collaborating with stakeholders at the local, regional, and global level to offer training and advice to public and private sector organisations on IPv6 adoption to ensure that everyone is prepared for IPv4 depletion and IPv6 deployment,” added Pawlik.

The 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”). The most recent assignment means that there are now only 12 of these blocks available, which is less than five percent of the entire IPv4 address pool.

The final five blocks of IPv4 addresses will be distributed simultaneously to the five RIRs, leaving only seven blocks to be handed out under the normal distribution method.

According to current depletion rates, the last five IPv4 address blocks will be allocated to the RIRs in early 2011. The pressure to adopt IPv6 is mounting. Many worry that without adequate preparation and action, there will be a chaotic scramble for IPv6, which could increase Internet costs and threaten the stability and security of the global network.

I’ve previously written about the problem with IPv4 /8s which have been used to number IP networks in an unofficial and improper way.

The problem is that the unofficial usage makes it more difficult for ISPs to bring these addresses into use when they are officially allocated and so less desirable. But we have to allocate IPv4 addresses to the RIRs as long as we still have them and they still request them. We just need to implement a mechanism to select which /8 is allocated to which RIR.

More from ICANN blog…

Global Internet Number Resource Policies are defined by the ASO MOU – between ICANN and the NRO – as “Internet number resource policies that have the agreement of all RIRs according to their policy development processes and ICANN, and require specific actions or outcomes on the part of IANA or any other external ICANN-related body in order to be implemented”. Attachment A of this MOU describes the Development Process of Global Internet Number Resource Policies, including the adoption by every RIR of a global policy to be forwarded to the ICANN Board by the ASO, as well as its ratification by the ICANN Board. In this context, the ICANN Board adopted its own Procedures for the Review of Internet Number Resource Policies Forwarded by the ASO for Ratification.

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IPv6 is coming, but what will it mean for hosting providers and data center operators? At HostingCon we spoke with John Curran, President and CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), who provides a helpful overview of the IPv6 transition and what it may mean for you.

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At the recent ISOC Asia conference in Kuala Lumpur a rather innocuous coffee break question was raised: could any one around the table name some of the major Top-Level Domains (TLDs) still delinquent in their IPv6 support? Nobody could answer on the spot but the question intrigued me.

A logical place to start looking for an answer was ICANN. Their Kim Davies provided a rather revealing perspective in a presentation at ICANN 34 in april. 41% of the 280 existing TLDs did not provide any IPv6 connectivity and more than 68% did without any diversity. Even for IPv4 it was surprising to see that 7.2% of TLDs do not provide diversity, contrary to IANA rules. Two name servers separated by geography and topology are required and the same applies for IPv6 (gTLD applicant guidebook).

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Global Internet Number Resource Policies are defined by the ASO MOU – between ICANN and the NRO – as “Internet number resource policies that have the agreement of all RIRs according to their policy development processes and ICANN, and require specific actions or outcomes on the part of IANA or any other external ICANN-related body in order to be implemented”. Attachment A of this MOU describes the Development Process of Global Internet Number Resource Policies, including the adoption by every RIR of a global policy to be forwarded to the ICANN Board by the ASO, as well as its ratification by the ICANN Board. In this context, the ICANN Board adopted its own Procedures for the Review of Internet Number Resource Policies Forwarded by the ASO for Ratification.

More from ICANN…