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Microsoft Runs Out of US Address Space For Azure, Taps Its Global IPv4 Stock
alphadogg (971356) writes "Microsoft has been forced to start using its global stock of IPv4 addresses to keep its Azure cloud service afloat in the U.S., highlighting the growing importance of making the shift to IP version 6. The newer version of the Internet Protocol adds an almost inexhaustible number of addresses thanks to a 128-bit long address field, compared to the 32 bits used by version 4. The IPv4 address space has been fully assigned in the U.S., meaning there are no additional addresses available, Microsoft said in a blog post earlier this week. This requires the company to use the IPv4 address space available to it globally for new services, it said."
IP blocks are meant to be a drill-down system. For example, 128.230.x.x is indicates it's on the Syracuse University campus.... with the 16 bits worth of addresses being spread out so that a specific x in the third position would indicate what building to send the packet to.
Microsoft's problem here is that their Azure service has used every one of the IP addresses allocated to it... and Microsoft doesn't have any subnets remaining in the "USA Block" of their IP addresses... so they have to move IPs that would have been used overseas back into the Azure datacenter. As IPv4 continues to be used we're going to start to see more of these "we're running out!" stories.