Wherefore art thou IPv6?

Apologies to Shakespeare, but it really does feel that long ago since IPv6 was first touted as coming soon (if not RSN - ‘real soon now’). However, the network world is still firmly routed in IPv4. There are a number of reasons for that:

• There still isn’t universal support for IPv6 in devices.
• Not all Internet Service Providers yet support IPv6.
• The ‘address exhaustion’ that was imminent still seems a way off.

The advent of address translation, initially in firewalls such as the Cisco PIX and Checkpoint Firewall-1, pushed back the need for an IP address for every device, and with it the imminent exhaustion of all of the available IP addresses in the v4 space. Since then it has been slow progress.

Things are starting to change. The major operating systems support IPv6 as standard (think Windows, OS X and Linux), even the embedded software used by many Internet appliances has IPv6 support. Earlier this year, ICANN added IPv6 host records to the root DNS servers (see Overhaul of net addresses begins on the BBC news site- just the fact that the BBC is covering it says something) and government contracts are meant to be mandating support for IPv6 (although they are apparently behind: “IPv6 deadline challenges DHS“).

That brings me to today’s post “No IPv6 content in the near future” by Dave Segal over at Global Crossing:

Generally speaking, you could say that interest in IPv6 on our MPLS VPN service has been lackluster at best, which I interpret as a sign that the typical enterprise cares nothing for IPv6. 

Imagine my surprise when, in a meeting with a Fortune 100 customer last week, I discovered that IPv6 is listed as a mandatory requirement for all future MPLS VPN purchases.

Given that many service contracts run for a number of years, it really is time to give more thought to IPv6 capabilities. In the same post, Dave estimates that around a third of that IT departments machines are dual stack (supporting both IPv4 and IPv6).

Somewhat ironically (given its late arrival on the IP scene) it may well be mobile that forces the issue of IPv6. The mobile standards bodies are firmly behind IPv6 and support on mobile devices and networks is well ahead of the fixed world.

Regardless of what finally pushes us over the edge from IPv4 to IPv6, the time has come to stop buying equipment that doesn’t support IPv6, or at least promises support for it as a software update.