IPv6

As the topkick in this little business, it's my job to worry about things that affect our business.

I worry about rural internet access - our customers have to have some sort of "always-on" internet access to use our products. Cable and DSL lines don't reach out far enough from the cities and towns, Wireless ISPs (WISPS) can't reach everyone, and not everyone has an unobstructed southern view for Satellite.

I worry about the general agricultural market - grain prices are up (as I write this) but that's putting a squeeze on livestock producers, whose profits have been hurting. Fruits and veggies are doing well, but I cringe every time I read of a proposal for the federal government to "help" these farmers.

What I'm worrying about today, however, is the next version of the Internet Protocol, IPv6. I have been in the computer and networking business for a long time. If you google "Bill Moffitt IPv6" you can see that I have been telling anyone who would listen for the last 10 years that IPv6 vital to our business and we need to drive the transition as quickly as possible.

The fact that I have been saying that for 10 years and we're still puttering along with IPv4 tells a story in itself...

IPv4, the version of Internet Protocol we're using today, is obsolete, and has been for some time. We have "patched" the Internet together using "NAT" - Network Address Translation. However, every client on the Internet must have an IP address, and every server must have a consistent (or "static") IP address. IPv4 allows fewer than 4 billion addresses, and there are many, many more than 4 billion devices on the Internet today - and growing fast. Indeed, while laptops, phones, tablets, and other "clients" can work well in the "artificial" IP addresses created by NAT, there are two problems that threaten the Internet.

The first is obvious: there are more and more servers being deployed as more and more services are becoming available. The second is that the line between "server" and "client" is changing with the advent of devices that are both client and server. A good example is an IP camera - it acts as a client on the Local Area Network, but it also acts as a server, delivering a stream of video to the LAN and, potentially, to the Internet. If you want to put one of these devices on the Internet (so you, and perhaps others, can access it across the Internet), you have to figure out how to do "port forwarding" on your router. This is networking judo at the brown-belt level - not for everyone. IPv6, however, will remove those problems.

Last year, the last two blocks of IPv4 addresses were allocated to the African and Asia Pacific areas. What this means is that, at the top level, we are completely out of IPv4 addresses - there simply are no more possible.

For some period of time, the regional authorities and ISPs have a storehouse of IPv4 addresses that they can use to deploy new servers. However, that storehouse is finite, and the Internet continues to grow at an exponential pace. The net result is that these addresses, of course, will start running out pretty soon.

It takes some imagination to see how this will play out, but I believe it will go something like this.

Some small providers, probably in Asia, will start to run out of IPv4 addresses. Companies seeking addresses for new servers will go to other service providers, which will accelerate the exhaustion of supplies. At some point, someone will start a new, very successful web business that will require hundreds or even thousands of IP addresses, and there just won't be enough addresses to allow them to deploy the number of servers required. They will have no choice but to start deploying with IPv6 addresses, at least for some of their servers and capacity.

The upshot will be that it will be necessary or at least very desirable to have IPv6 to access this new, "must-have" service and all new services that follow (since there will be no more IPv4 addresses). Since everyone will "need" this service (think of it as the next Google or Facebook), people will need IPv6 access, and they'll need it RIGHT NOW! This will create an immediate and urgent groundswell for IPv6 connectivity, and ISPs that cannot deliver that connectivity will see their subscribers go elsewhere as quickly as they can.

ISPs who have not thought this through will be overwhelmed by demands from their customers, and web hosting and rackspace providers who haven't already will need to implement "dual-stack" networks immediately or risk losing all their customers.

I am truly scared, however, based on the conversations I have had with different service providers. My home ISP says nothing about providing IPv6 connectivity to residential customers, although they do provide IPv6 to business customers. At the same time, I have been talking to hosting providers for server space, and I am apalled that so few of them offer IPv6 connectivity to their servers. When the "big switch" happens, these providers and all their customers will be at risk.

For the time being, however, I'm just looking for a good hosting provider that offers a full dual-stack implementation so we are insured from the turmoil to come. I strongly advise all business owners who depend on the Internet for their business to take a good, hard look at your hosting provider and ask some hard questions about their plans for implementing IPv6. It's smart business to get out in front of this one - don't let it be a surprise.