The depletion of the IPv4 allocation pool has been a concern since the late 1980s, when the Internet started to experience dramatic growth. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) created the Routing and Addressing Group (ROAD) in November 1991 to respond to the scalability problem caused by the classful network allocation system in place at the time. The anticipated shortage has been the driving factor in creating and adopting several new technologies, including Classless Inter-Domain Routing in 1993, network address translation and a new version of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, in 1998. IPv4 uses 32-bit (four-byte) addresses, which limits the address space to 4,294,967,296 possible unique addresses. However, some are reserved for special purposes such as private networks, approximately 18 million addresses and multicast addresses, approximately 270 million addresses. This reduces the number of addresses that can potentially be allocated for routing on the public Internet. The IPv4 addresses are divided into 256/8 primary allocation blocks, where each "/8" corresponds to 16,777,216 unique address values. Since that last block of the IPv4 public IP addresses was allocated, migration IPv6 is hence inevitable.
Source: www.cisco.com
But what is IPv6 and what does it mean to our daily lives? IPv6 is a version of the Internet Protocol (IP) that is designed to succeed Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). Unlike IPv4 which utilizes 32 bits for an IP address, IPv6 uses a 128-bit address translating to 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 IP addresses. IPv6 includes a transition mechanism which is designed to allow users to adopt and deploy IPv6 while providing direct interoperability between IPv4 and IPv6 hosts. Nomadic personal computing devices have become popular as their prices decrease and their capabilities increase, for instance, the tablets. These types of devices will become consumer devices and will replace the current generation of cellular phones, pagers, and personal digital assistants. Networking between computing devices is key. In essence, the devices can acquire IPv6 addresses as unique identifiers without the risk of depletion.
Apart from Internet access, demand for IP addresses has also been growing in other areas. In the security sector for instance, use of remotely controlled IP cameras and burglary sensors has been on the rise. Control of traffic control is also been done using IP camera. With the migration to digital TV and popularity of Video on Demand (VoD), the entertainment industry is acquiring a colossal number of IP addresses. Some modern televisions even have the capabilities to provide Internet access, a possibility is that every television set will become an Internet host. As our homes become smarter, every device that we need to control in our day to day life requires an IP address. These devices consist of lighting equipment, heating and cooling equipment, motors, and other types of equipment which are currently controlled via analog switches and in aggregate consume considerable amounts of electrical power. IPv6 provides a scalable, interoperable and versatile world- wide solution for all the IP addressing demands.
IPv6 has been ready for deployment since 1998 when it was designed by IETF after forecasting IPv4 depletion. Despite the benefits and apparent inevitability of IPv6, few network operators have deployed it. As of October 2010, Arbor Networks reported that IPv6 represented less than 1/20 of 1% of overall Internet traffic. The remaining 99.95% of Internet traffic uses IPv4. Network operators that don't move aggressively to support IPv6 on their public-facing Web sites and services will be forced to use complex, expensive translation mechanisms between IPv4 and IPv6 such as carrier-grade network address translation. Local service providers should engage in planning activities for the migration of both the core and the client-facing networks to IPv6.
