The Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) has run out of free IPv4 addresses. APNIC is the first of the Internet’s five regional Internet registries to deplete its free pool of IPv4 address space according to reports from Networks Asia. (I wrote about China’s IPv4 struggles here.)
APNIC’s news is another sign that CIOs and other IT executives need to begin migrating to IPv6.”For anybody who hasn’t figured out that it’s time to do IPv6, this is another wake-up call for them,” Owen DeLong, an IPv6 evangelist at Hurricane Electric and a member of the board of ARIN told Networks Asia. Any CIO who isn’t planning for IPv6 is “driving toward a brick wall and closing your eyes and hoping that it’s going to disappear before you get there,” Mr. DeLong says ignoring IPv6 “is not the best strategy.”
Paul Wilson, Director General of APNIC tells Networks Asia that, if a business is thinking of doing on the Internet, they need to have a plan to transition to IPv6 in place. “If you want to do business with China in the future for example, you will be to be on IPv6 or you won’t be able to reach your customers,” Mr. Wilson said.
The Asia-Pacific region has been gobbling up the most IPv4 address space in recent years; APNIC has apparently distributed more than 32 million IPv4 addresses to network operators in this region in the last two months alone. APNIC has depleted its IPv4 address space “dramatically faster than people expected,” Mr. DeLong says. “My guess is that a lot of operators in the Asia-Pacific region realized the time of IPv4 depletion was drawing near and they rushed to get their applications in.” But countries in the region are doing well with their IPv6 transition plans Mr. Wilson said.
But counties with developing markets also had the advantage where they could leapfrog any potential problems and move straight to greenfield IPv6 infrastructure Wilson said. APNIC is holding 16.7 million IPv4 addresses (a /8 in network engineering terms) in reserve to distribute in tiny allotments of around 1,000 addresses each to new and emerging IPv6-based networks so they can continue to communicate with the largely IPv4-based Internet infrastructure.
“RIPE [the European Internet registry] is going to be the next one to run out. I wouldn’t count on them making it until July[2011],” DeLong says. “I think ARIN (which doles out IPv4 and IPv6 address space to companies operating in North America,) will make it to the end of this year; maybe we’ll run out in October or November[2011].”
Spock – the router is under here
According to Mr. Wilson, the move to IPv6 should be the last we will experience. “We should be afraid of a situation where we exhaust IPv6. If the move from Ipv4 was difficult, the next will be a disaster,” he said.
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The regional Internet registries will have handed out most IPv4 address space by the end of 2011. Lots of organizations need to get on their transition plan. I have noted the need for IPv6 planning here, here, and here.
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What do you think?
- Is IPv6 a real topic in your organization?
- Has your organization even formed a team to discuss IPv6 addresses?
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.