IPv4 address exhaustion is becoming more and more of a reality every day. The latest proof: the Number Resource Organization (NRO) said this week that less than 10 percent of available IPv4 addresses remain unallocated.
NRO, which represents the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) that oversee the allocation of all Internet number resources, called the news a “critical moment” in the ongoing saga of IP address schemes, calling it a trigger to begin the long-awaited move to IPv6.
That inevitable move has been on the board for more than a decade — one of the key underlying themes that service providers are watching closely as they move all parts of their networks to IP (see our recent cover story: IP Everywhere: The State of IP). In researching that story, I talked to all sorts of experts about IPV4 exhaustion, and the consensus was that the time of IPv4 was finally over — network address translation (NAT) schemes have gone as far as they can and the truth is that heavier reliance on IP and the emergence of true IP applications means that the advantage of moving to IPv6 will soon begin to outweigh the inconvenience.
“For years, vendors were told if you didn’t support IPv6, you couldn’t get in the network,” said Keith Landau, chief product officer for Genband. “But it wasn’t really true. It was like when they’d say you couldn’t get into college if you didn’t know a foreign language. There were always ways around it.”
Those “ways around it” are coming to an end, or so hopes the Number Resource Organization. Here are their recommendations for enterprises and service providers to ease the move to IPv6:
- The business sector should provide IPv6-capable services and platforms, including web hosting and equipment, ensuring accessibility for IPv6 users.
- Software and hardware vendors should implement IPv6 support in their products to guarantee they are available at production standard when needed.
- Governments should lead the way by making their own content and services available over IPv6 and encouraging IPv6 deployment efforts in their countries. IPv6 requirements in government procurement policies are critical at this time.
- Civil society, including organizations and end users, should request that all services they receive from their ISPs and vendors are IPv6-ready, to build demand and ensure competitive availability of IPv6 services in coming years.
Read more about the NRO’s recommendations here.
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