Time's up for putting off IPv6 decisions
Time's up for putting off IPv6 decisions
With the Internet of Things, we're going to be needing a
lot more IP addresses. That's exactly what IPv6 has in mind.
Computerworld | May 15, 2015 8:56 AM PT
As companies become used to the Internet of Things, they
are assigning IP addresses to everything from printers and watches to
refrigerators and garbage cans. If we're all going to be moving that much
closer to recreating a Jetsons episode, we're going to be needing a lot more IP
addresses. That's exactly what IPv6 has in mind.
IPv4 is expected to run out of new available addresses in
a matter of months, forcing a truly near-term move to IPv6. How bad is the
shortage? The Wall Street Journal offered some sobering stats. Back in 1981,
IPv4 launched with 4.3 billion addresses. Today, barely 3.4 million are left.
IPv6 is launching with 340 undecillion addresses. Yes, that's a real number.
It's equivalent to one trillion times one trillion, which is roughly the length
of my to-do list when I return from vacation.
On the one hand, that makes it sound like moving to IPv6
should be a no-brainer. Well, it is, but exactly how to do it — without
abandoning the overwhelming majority of global systems that are still using
IPv4 — is a lot trickier.
Also, despite the age difference between IPv4 and IPv6,
companies are unlikely to see any meaningful performance improvements when
making the switch, so this really is all about capacity.
"Early research at Akamai has shown sometimes IPv4
paths exhibit lower latency and sometimes IPv6 paths do. This suggests IPv4 and
IPv6 perform similarly, but also vary similarly over time," said Arthur
Berger, a principal research scientist at Akamai.
There are various ways of making the transition gradual,
including middlebox translation, which is a good — but not universally
available — option. "It's not supported in every network," said David
Belson, a senior director for industry and data intelligence at Akamai.
"Duct tape and chewing gum solutions are going to eventually wear
out."
Dual-stack models supporting both v4 and v6 are going to
likely be the more popular option.
When to start supporting both? Getting v4 addresses now
is quite expensive, since the best source right now is to buy such addresses at
auction from companies that already have more than they need — or that are
going bye-bye. In retail, it was simultaneously sad and amusing that when the
assets of the once-mighty Circuit City and Borders were sold at auction, the most
valuable item they offered were their IP addresses.
Hence, companies need to make the move to v6 right away,
admittedly without ditching v4. As for when to make the complete switchover,
that could easily take years and quite possibly decades, as the last holdouts
for v4 will likely be stubborn and fairly numerous. Here are some credible
peeks at where IPv6 acceptance stands today, both by country and by telco. In
short, this will take a while.
"There are networks that will run IPv4
forever," said Phil Roberts, the technology program manager at the
Internet Society, where he specializes in IPv6 global issues. "The first
thing you want to do is get your public-facing stuff on IPv6."
That's good advice, but in an Internet world, how is
"public-facing" defined? Even the most internal systems — say, for
example, an expense report app — are going to be accessible through an intranet
for employees in locations across the planet. And inventory and ordering
systems will have to be available for suppliers and resellers via a hopefully
secure extranet. (Roberts clarified that he meant unrestricted content.)
Recrimination is rarely helpful, but seriously, isn't the
running out of IPv4 addresses the most predictable IT problem since Y2K? Given
that fact, why the delay? This is the latest example of the consequence of
having enterprise CIOs as the highest-paid temp workers in the industry. The
enterprise CIOs who stay in those roles more than six years is the extreme
minority. This encourages avoidance when it comes to expensive and
time-consuming projects that won't deliver near-term profit payback and also
won't deliver near-term pain.
If there was ever a project tailor-made for "I'll
let the next CIO worry about it," it's IPv6.
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