Earlier this month the final five IPv4 /8 blocks were allocated by the IANA to the Regional Internet Registries. this means there are no more unallocated /8′s left to be given to registries. The regional registries will continue to give out IP allocation’s to the Internet Service Providers out there, however once the regisitry uses it’s last available addresses up there will be no more IPv4 IP addresses available to any ISP in that region. So once the ISP runs out of IP addresses there will be no more IP addresses for its end users.
Now while this is a major problem that is going to affect your home broadband tomorrow, however as an IT professional its likely your organisation is using some sort of internet based services. Whether this be e-mail communication or many online web services, I really suggest being prepared. Most good IP transit providers are already IPv6 enabled, the IPv6 Internet is out there already and all that is lacking is for ISP’s to make the move to ensuring they’re able to provide IPv6 services to their end users.
I worked for a company which provided online marketing applications and hosted them on their own infrastructure, I made this network IPv6 enabled over 18 months ago. I am now working for a financial software company and they’re looking to provide new online services, I will be making their network IPv6 enabled from day one and may even look to provide services such as HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP and DNS all over IPv4 and IPv6.
Why?
Because one day, and we cannot be sure of the exact date, we will encounter an Internet end user who is IPv6 only and we need to be sure we’re ready to provide services to this user.
It takes time to test software and hardware to be sure they’re compatible with IPv6. It also takes time to ensure your network is running correctly under IPv6, so take advantage of this window now to get your knowledge up to speed and your configuration tested before it becomes part of your production infrastructure before you run into the situation where you need to make changes and have to start scheduling maintenance windows to get it all setup how it should be.
Don’t sit back, get in to it now as I guarentee you if you develop good IPv6 skills people will be asking for them in the next few months and there will be a shortage of supply to meet the demand.
If you wish to learn more about IPv6 and play on the real live IPv6 Internet then I recommend you contact your Service Provider and enquire about whether they can offer you the service now.
If not, don’t jump on the phone ready to move ISP’s, try out a tunnel broker. The past year I’ve been using Hurricane Electric’s free IPv6 tunnel broker using my own Cisco 1841 router on my broadband line as the end point for the IPv6 over IPv4 tunnel. They give you a /64 subnet by default but you can also request a /48 per tunnel which means I have plenty of IPv6 addresses for my internal network to play with.
Check them out at http://www.tunnelbroker.net
