Networking > IPv6Essentials

Organisations will lose business unless their networks support the next generation of Internet addresses, experts say.

A study this week has revealed just how slow is the rate of adoption for IPv6, the next version of the Internet's main communications protocol, and some experts say black markets where companies trade unused IP addresses may be only a few years away.

We posed a few questions to Russ Housley, chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force, about why the standards body is developing network address translations for IPv6 when IPv6 was supposed to eliminate the need for NATs on the Internet. Here's what Housley had to say.

Australian startup IPv6NOW is aiming to fill the void between the technology promises of next-generation networking and the business benefits by offering commercial support and services around IPv6.

The sky is falling on the number of global IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, and IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is the solution, executives from major technology companies said Wednesday.

Australian broadband ISP Internode claims to have become the first in the country to give national direct access to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) as part of its standard service.

The Internet engineering community will be eating its own dog food tonight. For one hour, the 1,250 network experts at the Internet Engineering Task Force meeting will be able to access the Internet only through IPv6. The IETF created IPv6 in the mid-1990s, but this upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol has not yet been widely deployed -- even by the technology's biggest proponents here. Network World National Correspondent Carolyn Duffy Marsan talked with IETF Chair Russ Housley about the group's IPv6 experiment, why the transition to IPv6 is taking so long, and whether the IETF leadership is starting to panic about IPv4 addresses running out. Here are excerpts from their conversation:

IT executives have been warned to stop dragging their feet when it comes to IPv6 migration and to start planning now.

IPv6 is not a pipedream. Founder of the IPv6 Forum Latif Ladid took time out from the IPv6 summit in Canberra to talk to Computerworld about why the new Internet Protocol is a pie to be consumed here and now.

Last year I discussed the decline in IPv6 address allocations since 2002 and the predicted that the tide would begin to turn. Now that 2007 is behind us, it is worth a look at last year's statistics to see where things stand.