{"id":87076,"date":"2018-08-04T13:05:57","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T17:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbachnet.wwwmi3-ss40.a2hosted.com\/?p=87076"},"modified":"2024-01-30T11:41:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T16:41:35","slug":"happy-birthday-to-ipv6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/happy-birthday-to-ipv6\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday to IPv6"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Happy<\/a>You are forgiven if you missed IPv6’s<\/a><\/strong> birthday (I did). The next-generation network addressing scheme turned 6 years old back in June. June 06, 2012, was World IPv6 Launch Day<\/a>\u00a0when everybody was supposed to permanently enable IPv6<\/strong> on their networks. The results – not so good<\/strong>. There are global highlights but 3\/4’s of internet users<\/strong> still regularly connect to the Intertubes<\/a> over legacy IPv4<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Internet Society<\/strong><\/a> rightly points out<\/a> that enterprise operations tend to\u00a0be the \u201celephant in the room\u201d when it comes to IPv6 deployment. If only 26% of networks advertise IPv6 autonomous system<\/a> prefixes, 74% do not. Most of the 3\/4ths not using IPv6 are likely to be enterprise networks<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Enterprises have traditionally been reluctant to embrace IPv6 \u2014 there has been no real need<\/strong> to implement it, with many seeing it as an additional cost and risk with no direct use for their daily business.\u00a0 Cos<\/strong>t can include monetary assets, but also people and time<\/p>\n

\"IPv6\"<\/a>Migrating to IPv6 will be hard<\/strong>. The migration will involve all departments of the organization and every piece of equipment connected to the network. Then consider that the migration will be made over time and that everyone needs to be on the same page working together for the best outcome and smoothest transition.<\/p>\n

Legacy systems<\/strong><\/a> can be defined basically as older systems. They likely are missing some common functionality from current technology, but still exist because they perform a key or important function for the organization just fine, thus there is no reason to replace it. However, this attitude is starting to change<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Microsoft<\/a>Larger and more tech-savvy enterprises are forging innovative paths forward. CircleID<\/em> points out Microsoft<\/a><\/strong> (MSFT<\/a>), which made one of the first publicly announced purchases of IPv4 address space<\/a>, reportedly purchasing 666,000 addresses at $11.25 per address<\/a> in 2011. In a recent blog, Microsoft described the steps is taking to turn off IPv4<\/a> and become an IPv6-only company. Their description of their heavily translated IPv4 network includes phrases like \u201cpotentially fragile\u201d, and \u201coperationally challenging\u201d, and about dual-stack operations, \u201ccomplex\u201d.<\/p>\n

Outside of the enterprise space, there’s still the rest of the Internet<\/strong> that needs to make the migration. According to the stats in the article, the top carriers in the U.S. still carry less than half of the IPv6 traffic that the Indian ISP Reliance Jio<\/a> carries. The Internet Society takes the happy view that the\u00a0excuse that “no one is doing IPv6” is gone. For many people and networks, IPv6 is the new normal<\/strong> and is the future of Internet connectivity.<\/p>\n

Some of the highlights for IPv<\/a>6 are:<\/p>\n