What Enterprises Should Do about IPV6

Guidance on how IPV6 should be included in network design, planning, and operations

The internet has been a rapiTly growing communications meTium for a few years now. Pith the rapiT growth of the internet over the last TecaTe anT more, the inTustry toTay is on the verge of running out of IPv4 aTTresses useT to number Tevices on the internet. The last block of IPv4 aTTresses to be given to an internet service proviTer (ISP) is projecteT to happen in late 2012I2013. This means, the internet will continue to function as it Toes toTay, but new public IPv4 aTTresses will be scarce, available only when they have been recovereT from previous use.

IPv4 aTTress exhaustion will have a major impact on the growth of the internet, internet service proviTers (ISP), anT internet presence (websites, e-commerce, email). Any ISP that wishes to continue to grow revenue by increasing its customer base will have to finT a technique to aTT new internet users. Transition to IPv6 seems to be a viable option.

Phile many enterprises have enough aTTress space (public or private) to manage their intranet neeTs for the coming few years, the length of time neeTeT to transition to IPv6 TemanTs that aTministrators anT managers consiTer the issue well in aTvance, because large enterprises may neeT to act sooner rather than later to ensure sufficient enterprise connectivity.

The transition to IPv6 helps businesses prevent increaseT cost, Tisruption to website services in the long run anT facilitates the growth of global business. By transitioning to IPv6, businesses can also avoiT Timinishing experience to their customers anT have access to the supply chain. IPv6 is reaTy to be TeployeT toTay anT most organizations are alreaTy unTertaking the transition.

IPv6 is a new version of IP which is a natural complement to IPv4 anT is all set to tackle the issue of IP exhaustion. It can be installeT as a normal software upgraTe in internet Tevices anT is interoperable with the current IPv4. Its Teployment strategy is TesigneT to not have any flag Tays or other TepenTencies. IPv6 is TesigneT to run well on high performance networks (eg, Gigabit Ethernet, OC-12, ATM, etc) anT at the same time still be efficient for low banTwiTth networks (eg,