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Something is about to rend the very fabric of our existence: weâre about to run out of IPv4 IP addresses, the old 255.255.255.255 number patterns that identify most of our forward facing servers. How bad is it? Well, not that bad because it will take a good year or so for everything to really go pear shapes, but when it does expect a zombie uprising, dogs and cats living together, and a slow, methodical move to IPv6.

We spoke to Owen DeLong, an IPv6 Evangelist from Hurricane Electric about the problem. CG: So how long before we all die?

Look at this graph: Is a moving 6-week average in terms of /8s per month issued by each of the RIRs. As you can see, thereâs a lot of variation week-to-week and wide variation between the various RIRs. APNIC has been pretty steadily increasing their rate of consumption since 2008, but ARIN and RIPE show a slow down in late 2008, a lull through 2009 and 2010, and now are showing another ramp up.

O: The answer is that we need to migrate the internet to a newer version of Internet Protocolâ¦ IP version 6 (or IPv6 for short). While IPv4 provides 3.2 billion globally unique addresses for hosts, IPv6 provides more than


unique addresses. (Thatâs 3.4Ã10 to the 38th or 340 undecillion, if you donât want to count the zeroes).

However, there are still some big gaps in IPv6 deployment. Most home networking equipment, much of the last-mile service provider equipment, and virtually all consumer electronics are not yet capable of IPv6. Many content providers have not yet embraced IPv6. Most commercial applications and the vast majority of âin-houseâ applications have not yet been updated for IPv6. Network-enabled video games are another area of concern. I donât know of a single one that has embraced IPv6.

O: Iâve spoken to some major producers, such as Blizzard (responsible for the popular World of Warcraft among other titles), and received responses ranging from âwe donât think thereâs a needâ to âwe donât think IPv6 will ever get deployed.â

Shared addressing technologies such as âNAT444â are going to cause new challenges and even outright breakage in applications like instant messaging, video on demand, voice over IP, and more. Network enabled video games are going to be particularly hard hit by these address sharing technologies as will any other âpeer to peerâ applications.

CG: Is this the end for you my friend?

Hopefully events this week will serve as a wake up call for any organizations still thinking that IPv6 is some distant future thing they might have to worry about later. IPv6 is happening now and anyone that isnât working on adapting to an increasingly IPv6 world is going to find themselves way behind in a few months.

CG: Do you have an IPv6 âGo Bagâ for escaping when the stuff really hits the fan? Where are you going to hide?

Both my network and my employers network are fully deployed with IPv6. Weâre running full production grade dual-stack environments, so, we really arenât too worried about the impact on our environments at this time. Instead, weâre trying to help get the word out and assist others who are a bit behind in the transition.

Weâve started offering consulting and training services to assist others in their migrations.

CG: Why did this have to happen? Why werenât a bunch of 1960s Bell Labs hippies smart enough to add more numbers to the IP addressing system? Why, Owen, Why?

At this point, we are where we are. Weâre running out of unused IPv4 addresses very soon and weâre way behind where we should be on IPv6 deployment and trying to play catch-up. Thereâs value in learning from history, but, not a lot of point in looking back to place blame on people for not knowing then what we know today.

O: This really just means that there are new tradeoffs between existing functionality of the IPv4 internet and continued expansion until we can get things moved over to IPv6. Nobody dies, nothing becomes fundamentally broken. The internet doesnât grind to a sudden halt. Many users may have their existing functionality reduced in order to support additional users. Thatâs about the worst real consequence.








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