Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IPv6 and the Business-Case Skeptics

Posted by kdawson on from the there-is-none-get-over-it dept.

Julie188 writes "Experts keep screaming that the IPv4 sky is falling. Three such experts were recently asked point-blank to state an irrefutable business case for moving to IPv6 now, and their answer was more plausible than the old refrain (the lack of addresses and a yet-to-be-seen killer IPv6 app). They said that there isn't a business case. No company that is satisfied with all of its Internet services will need to move, even in the next few years. They also pointed out that Microsoft is a unique position in the industry both causing and hindering IPv6 adoption — causing through its IPv6 support in its OSes, and hindering by not extending IPv6 support into very many of its apps."

2 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Re:IPv6 will happen when China demands it by Cajal · · Score: 4, Informative

    China has already demanded it. China's new national network, CERNET2, runs IPv6 - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/27/content_403512.htm.

  2. Re:Not exactly true by Paralizer · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's no business case if you don't care about growing your network. If you do, you need to care about IPv6, becuase in a few years, it's going to become increasingly difficult to get new public IPv4 addresses.

    Many companies do not need public IP addresses, yet they have large networks. For example, imagine a company that has a location with 2,000 employees. The company does not offer web services but they do need internet access for their employees to be able to send/receive email and use business applications between sites (via VPN tunnels). In this case the company may only need a handful of IP addresses and NAT all of their private addresses through the pool of 4 or 5 public IP addresses for that location. They can easily add a new building to their location and just expand their LAN as they have an entire 10.0.0.0 A block providing millions of IP addresses. NATing between the internal LAN and the internet they can get up to ~250,000 entries (provided their hardware can support that), allowing each of their 2,000 users to be using, on average, 125 internet applications (or open connections) at once.

    This situation I suspect is typical of almost all companies. Most already have enough public IP addresses to satisfy all of their internal users and lots of room to expand on their LAN side.