No IPv6 Doomsday In 2012

itwbennett writes "Yes, IPv4 addresses are running out, but a Y2K-style disaster/frenzy won't be coming in 2012. Instead, businesses are likely to spend the coming year preparing to upgrade to IPv6, experts say. Of course there's a chance that panic will ensue when Europe's RIPE hands out its last IPv4 addresses this summer, but 'most [businesses] understand that they can live without having to make any major investments immediately,' said IDC analyst Nav Chander. Plus, it won't be until 2013 that North America will run out of IPv4 addresses and there's no sense getting worked up before then."

Comments

Business as usual

[InterestingFella]

ISP's and hosting companies will not run out of IPs. This only means that the price per IP will start to slowly grow. Hell, every time I order server the companies still happily hand me over 5 IPs without me even asking for them. With a simple request I can also buy 256 ips for the price of $300 a year.

Re:Business as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

a Y2K-style disaster/frenzy won't be coming in 2012. Instead, businesses are likely to spend the coming year preparing to upgrade to IPv6

Sounds just like a Y2K-style disaster/frenzy.

Re:Business as usual

[pak9rabid]

The question I'd like to ask is why don't they just hand out a static IP by default?

There's a few good reasons off the top of my head that I can think of:

• - Dynamic IPs cut a lot of bullshit out of support calls
• - DHCP servers hand out more information that just IPs (default gateway, DNS servers, domain, etc)
• - ISPs like to have the option of re-allocating blocks of IPs without having to call hundreds/thousands of customers to have them renumber their equipment

Re:Business as usual

[XanC]

DHCP can be used to hand out a static IP.

Re:Business as usual

[Columcille]

And the good news about this is "normal people" don't have a clue what you're talking about when mentioning ipv4 or ipv6. Tell them, "We're about to run out of IP addresses!" and they'll blink at you. Tell them, "No! PANIC! IPV4 IS ALL FILLT UP!" and they will call for some friendly people to take you to a padded room. Tell them, "Oh, and we have a problem with programs that use a two digit year instead of a four digit year" and they will build disaster shelters.

Business opportunity

[ccguy]

Well, anyone looking to make some big bucks in the next 1-3 year should start learning IPv6. Nothing major needed, just setup a IPv6 network at home, if you can rent an external server with IPv6 in any of the many data centers that already offer it, and play with it.

It's not a lot of effort and there will be many highly paid job offers soon.

Re:Business opportunity

[EdIII]

The problem is not learning IPv6. That's easy. At least to anyone with more than a little experience doing this. I was working before the Internet even came around and before Ethernet, so I don't see it as a big obstacle.

Where is all the fucking Enterprise hardware and firmware updates to support it?.

That's what needs to be solved. I could support IPv6 tomorrow if it was a simple firmware change. IPv6 will not be rolled out into Enterprise environments for at least 10-15 years completely. Reason why is simple. Not every network device supports it. I got clients that still have 5 years or more to go on lease contracts for huge printer and document systems. No IPv6 firmware updates in the pipeline that I know about.

Operating systems will be faster of course, but you need to cover all of the devices first.

My biggest issue is the routers themselves. If you are running a business or have branch offices, you are not, or should not, be doing that on any hardware you can pick up at BestBuy. Prosumer or higher routers that can set up multiple WAN ports don't have IPv6 yet. Perhaps the absolute newest ones might, but that could represent 20-30k in new equipment costs for a medium sized business with branch offices. For what? Just IPv6?

Unless the manufactures get off their asses, stop being greedy, and push out a firmware update for existing hardware to support IPv6 there will be a lot of people like me that have two choices:

1) Stay with IPv4
2) Spend tens of thousands of dollars on new hardware.

Tough situation.

P.S - Why do any of that until at least 1/3rd of all customers are using IPv6?

Silly

[HBI]

Only the regional NICs have run out of blocks to distribute. No one has actually run out of IPv4 addresses. Moreover, there is a lot that still can be done to reclaim addresses. Lastly, the huge swathes of multicast and class E addresses haven't even been tapped.

This is just more attempts for the shill media to try to herd people into replacing their gear. It'll fail like the rest.

The USG was scheduled to go to IPv6 in 2006. It hasn't even begun yet.

Re:Bologna

[evilviper]

All the articles I've read seem to come down to "it's more convenient" for applications not to have to deal with NAT... Of course it is also more convenient for people who mean to do you harm, too, since we're back to connections to outside resources coming from the machine's actual IP address, a public NATing of the private one.

NAT doesn't provide any security. Never has, never will. No, I'm not wrong. No, I'm still not wrong.

If you have a firewall between your private network and the public Internet, then you'll have all the security you want, whether using IPv4 or IPv6, with or without NAT. If you don't, then it's trivial for bad guys to reach services you don't want them to get to. If there's NAT in-between, it'll take a couple extra specially-crafted packets, but it's pretty trivial to get around.

IPv6 addresses with a firewall? Bad guys can know the IPv6 address of your valuable systems all they want, but if your firewall is blocking incoming connections by default, they can't get a single bit through to the destination.

I don't understand why people's brains turn to jello when talking about IPv6.