Engineers Need to Feel the Pain of IPv6 Failure
Engineers Need to Feel the Pain of IPv6 Failure
By Adrian Bedford
Network engineers should be forced to explore a world without IPv4 to expose the lack of preparation for when the Internet exhausts its current space.
The current technologies keeping the global network running are predicted to run dry within two years; Businesses are being urged to switch to the next generation of Internet numbering known as IPv6. Without doing so, communications growth could stagnate.
But it is the network engineers who must drive such a switch and convince their bosses of the economic drive to do so.
A member of the European RIPE IPv6 Working Group has suggested exposing these engineers to a world where the existing technology doesn’t exist, forcing them to sink or swim.
Shane Kerr of the Internet Systems Consortium suggested attendees at the upcoming RIPE Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal face an extended IPv4 switch off.
“Perhaps we should begin preparing ourselves for the future IPv4 world by simulating various levels of IPv4 exhaustion,” he told the working group mailing list. “We should disable IPv4 for access to the meeting itself, as this is the first problem that new entrants to the Internet will have.”
Those opposed to throwing everything behind IPv6 take-up have already suggested ways to extend the life of the existing technology. One such move is known as network address translation (NAT) where a network operator splits a single address into tiny sub networks. This works something like where single electricity supplies can be split to feed a number of devices.
“People are already accustomed to living behind NAT with their laptops,” Kerr noted. “They might be a little more annoyed when Google Maps won’t work because there aren’t enough ports to handle all the simultaneous open connections.”
The next RIPE Meeting takes place in Lisbon at the start of October. A major focus will be IPv6 deployment. Attendees will discuss IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 deployment.
Adrian Bedford
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