IPv6 usage sees growth, but slow
With the final blocks of IPv4 addresses distributed, IPv6 traffic has been increasing, but at a much slower pace than expected. Currently accounting for 1/400th of all traffic across CommunityDNS’ network, the adoption of IPv6 clearly has a long way to go.
On February 3, 2011, the last block of IPv4 addresses were handed out to each of the Regional Internet Registries (RIR). Once all of the IPv4 addresses have been used all new destinations on the Internet will be assigned an IPv6 Internet address, the newest version of IP addressing. Why is this important?
IPv6 is a big deal and here is why.
1). Not backwards compatible: IPv6 is not backwards compatible, therefore hardware platforms (i.e., computers, routers, Internet appliances, even down to IP-allowed point-of-sale devices) will not be allowed to access newer applications which will only be available with IPv6.
2). Online Economies: In 2008 E-commerce spending worldwide equaled $6.8 trillion dollars, representing approximately 15% of the global GDP (Gross Domestic Product). In the UK alone, a recent study revealed the Internet accounts for 7.2% of the country’s GDP. With new applications based only on IPv6, access to new applications and services may be hampered, thus limiting online economic growth potential.
IPv4
First developed in 1978 and deployed in 1981, IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) provided a means by which each networked device could be connected to the Internet with its own, unique IPv4 address. Developed to support 4.3 billion connected devices (4,294,967,296 to be exact) visionaries believed IPv4 would provide an ample amount of addresses for any device connected on the Internet. Innovative ideas over the last 15 years have far exceeded the imagination of the Internet’s original visionaries.
IPv6
Development for IPv6 was started in 1993 with the new addresses becoming available in 1999.
While IPv4 supports 4,294,967,296 unique end devices, IPv6 was developed to support 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 unique devices.
Why this is a big concern
For those who already have IPv4 addresses there should be no problem, right? They already have their address and can connect to the Internet, so nothing to be concerned about, right?
Wrong. As mentioned earlier, IPv6 is not backwards compatible. Devices and networks which only recognize IPv4 will not be able to recognize or access devices or applications which are based only on IPv6 addresses. New IPv6-based applications or content will only be for those devices and networks which recognize IPv6 addresses.
Getting back to the economic factor, we learned at the beginning of this story, in 2008 E-commerce spending worldwide equaled $6.8 trillion dollars, representing approximately 15% of the world’s GDP. Also, recent study by Google says, the UK is the world’s leading nation for e-commerce. Currently for every £1 spent online to import goods, £2.80 is exported thus creating a healthy online economic factor in the UK’s overall economy. The study further points out that for the UK the Internet accounts for 7.2% of the country’s GDP; with growth poised for 10% annually.
Where computers, routers, networks, network providers, point-of-sale devices, appliances, smart grids, servers and applications, to name a few, are not able to support IPv6, their services can only hinder online economic growth.
So yes, migrating to IPv6 is important.
What can be done?
Start using IPv6! There are organizations who can support IPv6 yet their DNS zones haven’t been updated to reflect IPv6 information.
For those who have not yet implemented IPv6, or have not yet updated their zone files to reflect IPv6, the question is why? Is there an identified risk in not adding IPv6 information to zones? If there are identified risks, what are they and how are the risks being mitigated?
Looking forward
It is because of understanding the importance of supporting IPv6 for the economic health and survivability of customers and economies, CommunityDNS’ global Anycast DNS platform became completely IPv6 compliant as soon as the first IPv6 addresses were available in 1999.
It is this level of leadership and of thoroughly understanding the importance of such developments that CommunityDNS strives for excellence in DNS resilience. As leaders in the early adoption of IPv6, CommunityDNS remains fully capable of resolving all of the world’s queries using the network engineered for security, optimized for speed and designed for resilience.
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