The class of 74 provided us with many memorable images – some however not quite so interesting. But looking at Vint Cerf, his attire and his pipe, you know that it has been a while. The IPv4 was designed in that context
The Internet Protocol was designed to connect the military entities in the USA DoD. At some point it was also considered to include education – this was the initial scope and as such 4.3 billion addresses seemed like an infinite number. Now we are designing for that every m2 on earth to be able to accomodate 1500 unique IPv6 addresses or alternatively address every grain of sand in Sahara. 2 to the power of 128 is a very large number – actually twice the size of 2 to the power of 127
Didn’t NAT kill IPv6?Before NAT, in the early days of the Internet, if a host could reach the Net, everyone on the Net could reach that hostAfter NAT, lost of transparency. Extremely complex mechanisms in place to circumvent NAT obstacles. This requires expensive and power sucking central infrastructure - and will suck batteries from your devices like there is no tomorrow – with IPv6 and without NAT your batteries will last longer. Mostly an Asian activityIPv4 Addressing Is Not Sustainable Long TermIPv4 is expanding faster than the capacity of the routing infrastructure.With the smartphone I have 2 IPv4 addresses even on my smartphone, then on my PC I have 5 IPv4 addresses since I am running Virtualbox, I have wireless LAN and Wireless WAN, I have a VPN connection ........ And I am not alone – my older son has a PC, a Mac, an iPod, an Android phone, we have a printer, a scanner. They all have IP addresses – but since they are not reachable as such from the internet they offer limited value when I am out and about. OK – there are ways around it – but it is only a workaround – it is not by design. So we are also growing. Problems with IPv4 addressing:Early address allocation was not efficient. Addresses were not reclaimed after they were no longer in use.CIDR solution was introduce in1994) which eased Routing Table Growth but Lack (difficulty) of renumbering when networks migrate to new ISPs is fragmenting the IPv4 address space.Give it another decade or two!WRONG - with the sprawl of devices and need for new apps – this is turning into an issue this year. Telenor and other SPs need to see every endpoint to figure where they are. Think:”CanI offer services like TV and films to the clients – given the rights are limited by country and region – not by whos customer my customers are. “ NAT in todays volume makes it more complex and time consuming to figure out Internet predators – now without NAT services, they can find it harder to hide – although not impossible, but who said criminals by nature are smart. Additional concerns with IPv4IPv4 Communication between local devicesIPv4 Administration Labor intensive, complex, slow, and error prone. Security IPv4 was developed when networking was a closed system. While security specifications were added over time, these are optional and there is no single standard.Quality of service (QoS)Mobile IPv4 is not as scalable, efficient, or secure as it needs to be given the number of mobile devices online now and expected in the future.IPv6 solves many other IPv4 problemsSuch as seamless mobility, security, network plug-n-play, and extensibility.
Say you want to IM you kids – without NAT you could register once with your friends and update when and if your IP address should change. Today you must register at a public address services and with millions of endpoints this quickly becomes a scaling issue. Add voice – even more – add video – wow it gets worse. Without NAT the converation can run from point to point, without intermediate gateways that add delay and cost to the solution. Getting rid of NAT is a great idea. Then you secure by policy rather than by artificially complex translations. Ask your self – how to you communicat the best – through a not so clever translator – or by speaking the same language as the other party fluently ?
Dual stack is the same as adding a language skill – you can talk translated or native . Your choice. The issues arrives when the service you want is not available or very expensive on IPv4 – then you need to rush to fix things. HP can help and has done it before – so unless your business hobby is climbing mountains, let HP help you put some stairs in. We have done it before and can do the climb with you.
Getting of to an earlier start is important to control risk and cost. Planning is better than many takes on getting it right. Now is a good time to start – start when you can – not when you must. “Just in time” in this context typically ends up being “simply to late”. Planning is the right thing to do when you can leverage experienced resources in the planning – resources that have done it before .. HP