In an industry as dynamic as IT, any given technology usually loses its lustre after five or so years, with some of the more resilient ones making it all the way to 10.
Version 4 of the Internet protocol (IPv4) has survived an incredible 20 birthdays, and instead of waning, its popularity is at a peak that few other technologies could ever hope to achieve.
IP is the basis of the Internet. Without it, the World Wide Web, e-mail, voice over IP, video streaming, and other network-reliant applications would simply either not exist, or would probably be served over highly disparate networks.
In layman`s terms, the amount of IPs available with IPv6 is infinite.
Carlos Marques, systems engineer, Cisco South Africa
IP has taken over from Netware, Banyan Vines and IPX/SPX as the office network of choice, has beaten frame relay and the like on the long hauls, and become the stalwart of networking everywhere.
Its popularity, however, will likely be its demise. When the fathers of IP hammered out this standard on US military networks and, later, on university-centric LANs and WANs, the longevity of the protocol would have been hard to envisage.
The fact that IPv4 does support address space for 4.3 thousand million devices shows a certain foresight in times when single computers filled buildings, and were as rare as hens` teeth. However, in a world where everything - from the PC to the handheld, to the television to the cellphone - may soon need its own IP address, a few thousand million doesn`t cut it.
Enter IP version 6
It is difficult to comprehend how many addresses IPv6 will be able to provide. While IPv4 supports 32-bit addressing, IPv6 boasts 128-bit addressing, which translates to four billion times four billion times four billion more addresses than IPv4. Theoretically, that`s 665 570 billion IP addresses per square meter on earth.
How many addresses can IPv6 support?
IP version 6 can support 340 282 366 920 938 463 463 374 607 431 768 211 456 addresses. This translates to 665 570 793 348 866 943 898 599 addresses per square meter of the Earth`s surface (assuming the Earth`s surface is 511 263 971 197 990 square meters).
However, due to the typical loss of IP addresses through the creation of hierarchies in most networks, a worst-case scenario would result in only 1 564 addresses for each square meter of the planet.
"In layman`s terms, the amount of IPs available with IPv6 is infinite," says Carlos Marques, systems engineer, Cisco South Africa.
Every IP address represents a potential permanent connection to the Internet. This number may seem ridiculous to us now, but the Internet Engineering Task Forum (IETF), the standards body that facilitated the process of the creation of IPv6, is planning well ahead.
IPv6 may be around for another 20 years - or more - and computing paradigms will shift dramatically over that time, if current trends continue.
To date we have not experienced a sufficient address crunch to warrant IPv6.
Derek Wilcocks, joint-MD, Internet Solutions
IPv6, also referred to as IP next-generation, offers more than just a massive address space. It also brings with it quality of service (QOS) elements, as well as security and authentication methodologies, neither of which were present in the original IPv4 specification. Compared to IPv4, IPv6 is also expected to sport improved performance over its precursor.
The performance increase and the QOS components will help drive applications like video streaming and IP telephony, both of which are starting to emerge as important applications driving the growth of the Internet. With greater security comes trusted e-commerce and e-business applications.
Haven`t we seen this before?
Those familiar with IP technology will know that QOS and security are already available on IPv4. When the IETF started developing the specification for IPv6 in 1995, other IETF working groups hammered out standards for QOS and authentication. The IPv6 spec has been six years in the making, and the Internet could not wait that long to get e-commerce and heavy streaming technologies off the ground.
Although QOS, authentication and security were not present in the original IPv4 specification, they have been included in all recent IP roll-outs, making them ubiquitous enough to rely on them as standards. Unfortunately for IPv6, this development has critically diminished the business need for the protocol. IPv6 pundits are almost solely reliant on its addressing capabilities to get the new protocol into the market.
The need for Internet addresses has also largely been dealt with within the IPv4 paradigm. Subnet addressing, NAT (network address translation) and MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) has alleviated a great deal of pressure for IP addresses.
What will drive the requirement for IPv6? Applications and end devices, nothing else.
Carlos Marques, systems engineer, Cisco South Africa
MPLS is an IETF standard that allows edge routers (routers closest to the devices) to label an IP packet with information about where it comes from, where it is going to, as well as information regarding the nature of the packet which can be used for QOS. In other words, once in an MPLS-enabled network, the IP address information is ignored by the routers, and the packet is passed around according to its label.
"To date we have not experienced a sufficient address crunch to warrant IPv6," says Derek Wilcocks, joint-MD, Internet Solutions (IS). "We have rolled out MPLS, which enables private address spaces to route over public networks." Through MPLS, IS uses a mere four IP addresses per corporate customer.
While MPLS does inhibit IPv6 from an address range and a QOS perspective, it will also be an important factor in the roll-out of IPv6. If a company or an Internet service provider (ISP) decides to migrate to IPv6, those 128-bit addresses can be maintained while the packet is routed through an IPv4 network, wrapped safely in an MPLS packet.
Since it is highly unlikely that IPv6 will ever be rolled out in a "big-bang" approach at one time around the world, it will be important for the two protocols to co-exist on the Internet for quite some time. MPLS`s high adoption rate makes it a likely candidate to facilitate this partnership.
IP, IP everywhere
Despite efforts to ward off the impending shortage of IP addresses using IPv4, a new generation of connected devices will eventually force the elder protocol into retirement. The first of these is third-generation (3G) cellphones.
According to a report by the Commission of the European Communities regarding 3G cellular technologies in Europe: "The current implementation of the Internet protocol (IPv4) is considered to limit the full deployment of 3G services in the long run. The proposed new IP version (IPv6) would overcome this addressing shortage and enable additional features, such as guaranteed quality of service and security. Implementing IPv6 mobile networks will also allow for wireless machine-to-machine interconnection, thereby considerably boosting the application of 3G. Any delay in the transition to all-IPv6 networks, which will require several years of effort, risks hindering the deployment of these advanced 3G service features at a later stage."
It`s not clear that there will ever be a killer app for IPv6.
Derek Wilcocks, joint-MD, Internet Solutions
Networking vendor Cisco states in one of its reports that 405 million mobile phones were sold worldwide last year. In five years - around the time that 3G is expected to pick up - this number is expected to pass 1 billion. All of these phones could potentially need IP addresses, which would far exceed current IP technology`s ability to deliver.
Large emerging populations, including China, Russia, Korea, Japan and India, are expected to take to the Internet en masse, further straining today`s Internet infrastructure.
By 2010, 15% of the 1 billion-plus cars produced worldwide are expected to include Internet connectivity features.
Most of the Internet connectivity technologies being developed today will require "always-on" connectivity, meaning that multiple users will not be able to share a handful of addresses through a dynamic IP allocation system. They will all need their own IP address.
Other factors expected to contribute to Internet growth - and hence fuel the need for IPv6 - include online gaming, home networks (increasing dramatically due to telecommuting), IP telephony, connected handhelds, IP television, and much more.
"What will drive the requirement for IPv6? Applications and end devices, nothing else," says Marques.
"It`s not clear that there will ever be a killer app for IPv6," says Wilcocks. "The arguments in favour of IPv6 primarily look at the proliferation of IP-enabled devices. Once that really starts to take off, with TVs, homes, security systems and the like, all with IP addresses visible over the Internet, we could see the growth of IPv6."
South African reality
The concise IPv6 dictionary
Authentication: A method allowing a recipient of a packet to authenticate the packet`s origin.
IETF: The Internet Engineering Task Force is an industry organisation is responsible for the creation of standards related to the Internet.
Internet protocol (IP): A networking protocol that was created in the early 1960s to allow multiple machines to communicate with one another. IPv4 was ratified as a standard in 1981. It is now the lingua franca of the Internet, as well as the standard for most internal networks.
IP address: Whenever a computer, server, handheld, cellphone, or other network-enabled device connects to the Internet, it is assigned an IP address. This address lets other computers know how to reach the device over the Internet when sending it data.
IP telephony: Instead of using traditional telephone exchange systems, IP telephony allows service providers to run its voice calls over an IP infrastructure.
Multi-protocol label switching (MPLS): An IETF standard that allows edge routers (routers closest to the devices) to label an IP packet with information about where it comes from, where it is going to, as well as information regarding the nature of the packet which can be used for QOS. In other words, once in an MPLS-enabled network, the IP address information is ignored by the routers, and the packet is passed around according to its label.
Network Address Translation (NAT): A method by which multiple computers from a private network entering a public network are assigned a single IP address.
Packet: Data is typically split into small packets when it is sent over a network. This packet also includes information about where it is going and where it came from, so that routers and switches along the way know where to send it. Other information, including application, priority and security information can also be attached to each packet.
Protocol: A pre-defined method of communication that both parties agree on to facilitate that communication. In the case of computer protocols, two computers that both use the same protocol will be able to communicate with one another.
Quality of service (QOS): A system to prioritise packets travelling over the Internet, based on their content, who they were sent by, and other pre-defined criteria. For instance, the MD of a company may get the highest priority in the company, except at month-end, when accounting gets highest priority for network usage.
Router: A device on the network that receives packets and sends them on to their specific destinations.
Streaming: A constant flow of data sent between a sender and a recipient, which can be used for applications like video and voice.
Compared to Europe, the Far East and the US, SA`s need for IPv6 looks like it won`t mature for some years to come. Although we have a high penetration of cellphones, the move to 3G is still many years off. A high proliferation of Internet-enabled devices has not yet been seen in SA, and even the large corporate networks are dwarfed by their overseas counterparts.
"When we have a proliferation of IP-enabled devices, IPv6 will start to roll out," predicts Marques, "but the demand for all of these devices is not there yet."
IS`s Wilcocks believes that the some of the smaller ISPs may roll-out IPv6 for marketing reasons, but local customers are not asking for and do not need IPv6.
When we have a proliferation of IP-enabled devices, IPv6 will start to roll-out, but the demand for all of these devices is not there yet.
Carlos Marques, systems engineer, Cisco South Africa
"The more features you put on a router, the more likely you are to have bugs," says Wilcocks. "The more protocols you have on one router, the larger the footprint of the feature set, which results in a greater potential performance impact on your existing network. ISPs moving to IPv6 now are creating complexity for themselves and their customers, which doesn`t warrant the marketing hype around it."
Despite expected long delays in SA, the Internet will eventually run out of addressing space. Approximately half of the IPv4 addresses available have already been used, and devices connected to the Net double approximately every 12 months. IPv4 cannot put the issue off indefinitely with add-ons and new features. IPv6 will, at some point, become a standard. It is reassuring to know that when this happens, the technological foundation will be in place to last us another few decades.
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