IT Expert Voice

The Internet is running out of network addresses, which will force the switch from IPv4 to IPv6. But IPv6 has other advantages as well, such as improving network performance and making network administrators more productive (and cheerful).

It isn’t a pretty thought to consider migrating an enterprise to a new Internet addressing scheme. Any change to the network can be time consuming and expensive to deploy. But in addition to the technical forces making the move a necessity there are good technical reasons for making the switch. READ MORE

Like it, or lump it, we’re going to have use both IPv6 and IPv4 on our corporate networks and the Internet for years to come. Here’s how we can do it.

It would have been so easy if the early Internet and TCP/IP network designers had made IPv6 backward compatible with IPv4. They didn’t. And, while  Leslie Daigle, Chief Internet Technology Officer for the Internet Society, admitted at a June 2009 meeting that IPv6’s “lack of real backwards compatibility for IPv4 was [its] single critical failure,” crying over spilt standards isn’t going to help us now. No, instead we have to make the best of using IPv6 in an IPv4 world. READ MORE

One reason why IPv6 adoption has been so slow is that everyone is waiting for everyone else to adopt it first. If that’s the reason for your own company’s sluggishness, it’s time to reconsider, because important online partners are already using the network address protocol: Google is leading the way, by offering its services over IPv6. READ MORE

You may have avoided moving your network to IPv6 for years, but you won’t be able to put it off much longer. Here’s why you need to plan for a transition.

Every few years there’s another panic about everyone running out of IP addresses. The terror that the Internet would simply run out of room is finally coming true. It’s not so much that computers are consuming the IP addresses; it’s all those smartphones, iPads, and other devices that require Internet access.

The Number Resource Organization (NRO), the organization that oversees the allocation of all Internet number resources, announced in January 2010 that less than 10% of available IPv4 addresses remain unallocated.

“It is vital that the Internet community take considered and determined action to ensure the global adoption of IPv6,” Axel Pawlik, chairman of the NRO, said in a statement. “The limited IPv4 addresses will not allow us enough resources to achieve the ambitions we all hold for global Internet access.”

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You may not need IPv6 right now, but you will soon. Fortunately, Windows 7 supports the advanced networking protocol better than any other Windows version. But that doesn’t mean you should rely on the default IPv6 configuration. READ MORE

IPv6 has been “the next generation of TCP/IP protocols” for so long that you can be forgiven for thinking that it will never be useful. However, with Windows 7, Microsoft has finally given network administrators a reason to consider using IPv6. READ MORE

Computers and Internet access are universally available, but your corporate network resources are probably only available on your office PC and on your laptop. If you wanted to securely use your office resources from another computer — say, your husband’s laptop or your local library’s PC — you were out of luck. Until now.
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