IPv4 addresses should eventually run out in about a month, making IPv6 implementation the only viable solution for the long-term growth of the Internet. In October, RIPE NCC – as the organization responsible for assigning IP addresses to Internet Service Providers in 76 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Central Asia – announced that it had only one million IPv4 addresses left.
All addresses retrieved after this point will be assigned through a waiting list. But this will probably only represent a few hundred thousand addresses a year, which is far from the millions networks need today. Concretely, this means greater pressure on network tools, which will be forced to resort to complex and expensive solutions to serve users in a world where fewer addresses are available. The upcoming deadline means it's time for businesses to take stock of their IP resources and make sure their IPv6 deployment plans are progressing.
About the AuthorNikolas manages the RIPE NCC Registry Services (RS) team.
A limited future for IPv4
An IPv4 exhaustion condition exists since 2012, when the RIPE NCC reached its final allocation assigned by the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). This issue has been anticipated and planned for by the technical community. So even though the Internet isn't suddenly going down, the rarity of the IPv4 protocol is still a major concern for many network operators.
A third of the 4,000 operators surveyed recently rated IPv4 shutdown as one of the top three challenges facing their organization, with internet security and cloud service delivery. More than half of the networks (54%) said they will need more IPv4 addresses in the next 2-3 years. As it becomes increasingly difficult to acquire IPv4 blocks, it will become more difficult for networks to build out their Internet infrastructure for future growth. Creative approaches will be needed to find public address space for numbering networks, but they are complicated, expensive and time consuming.
One of the most common solutions is carrier-class network address translation (CGNAT), which is used to extend the lifetime of IPv4 addresses by allowing a single IP address to be shared across thousands of devices. The problem is that CGNAT cannot evolve indefinitely. Any time a NAT is layered, it adds complexity and increases the risk of network problems. In the event of a CGNAT failure, thousands of users may be affected.
Another widely used workaround is IPv4 address swapping: the buying and selling of addresses that are no longer needed. However, this is a very unpredictable market and IPv4 address prices are subject to the usual market forces of supply and demand. As IPv4 management becomes more difficult, maintaining the status quo becomes more complex and costly.
Is now
With the imminent depletion of the remaining RIPE NCC pool, the need for networks to adopt IPv6 is clearer than ever. But switching to IPv6 proved to be a tough sell. Network operators are used to working with IPv4, and many of them may take a wait-and-see approach. This is particularly the case for networks that feel they have enough IPv4 addresses to sustain them for the foreseeable future.
Although it may seem easier to stick with IPv4, it will become increasingly difficult to do so. IPv4 resources have been almost completely used, with Internet companies connecting an estimated 4.500 billion users and several billion additional mobile devices using just 4.200 billion IPv4 addresses. . In contrast, IPv6 has 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses available. This opens up huge new opportunities for network configuration, efficiency, and innovation, not to mention reducing reliance on the increasingly costly and challenging IPv4 market.
But IPv6 has not been as widely adopted as expected, although the pace of deployments has picked up. India and the United States have crossed the 50% mark, while Germany, France and the United Kingdom have reached 40%, 35% and 31% respectively. It is interesting to note that advanced economies like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have adoption rates below 15%, while emerging economies like Vietnam, Brazil, Thailand, and Mexico have much higher adoption rates: 38%, 30%, 29 % and 28% respectively. .
mobile growth
This growth was mainly driven by content providers and the mobile phone industry. The T-Mobile network in the United States handles 91% of its Internet traffic over IPv6. Regarding content providers, Facebook uses IPv6 only internally and IPv4 tunnels for final connectivity. Google, LinkedIn and Netflix are accessible via IPv6. All iPhone apps from the Apple App Store must be IPv6 compliant. However, only 6 to 25 percent of the world's top 30 websites are accessible via IPv1,000.
IPv4 depletion should drive IPv6 adoption, but much remains to be done. In any case, not moving is risky and short-sighted for networks. And the current implementation of IPv6 has advantages: a network that enables IPv6 connectivity to end users will quickly see a significant amount of traffic flow, thanks to leading content providers enabling IPv6. Leveraging the innovation, efficiency, and flexibility of IPv6 is now the best way to enable the necessary growth of the Internet as the next billion technologies and the next generation of technologies come online. .
Nikolas manages the RIPE NCC Registry Services (RS) team.