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Day 3+4 of the V6 World 2012 Congress
were also interesting.

In many ways my conclusions of the first two conference days were reconfirmed but additionally I learned that;

1. IPv4 is here to stay and it will take many more years before IPv4 is completely history. On the other hand, it is still unpredictable when IPv4 address space is really exhausted. See Geoff Huston’s IPv4 reports. Predictions are currently somewhere later this year or perhaps 2013 or even later, depending on the demand for IPv4 addresses and the way the use for IPv6 actually evolves.
2. Any NAT technology like Carrier Grade NAT (CGN) has disadvantages to make it a viable transition mechanism. As such it is less preferred.
3. Dual stack is the preferred transition mechanism. Where the content provider or hosting party provides access to (web) services via both IPv4 as well as IPv6.
4. The sheer size of the IPv6 address space requires to get rid of the classical IPv4 thinking regarding address waste and the use of private IP addressing. These limitations simply don’t exist anymore. Currently the smallest routable IPv6 subnet is a /64 subnet which could have up to a maximum of 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 unique IPv6 addresses. Think about it; each /64 subnet is significantly larger than the existing IPv4 address space altogether!
5. If the 100 biggest web sites in the world (the likes of FB, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, Akamai, etc) would get accessible via IPv6, it would ensure that the world would adopt IPv6 much faster.
6. End users need to have IPv6 enabled Customer-premises equipment (CPE) such as mobile devices, DSL modems and routers, before the content providers and ISPs really would benefit the transition. Without these IPv6 enabled devices there is simply no demand for IPv6. This chicken-egg problem needs to be addressed on either side; both the ISPs as well as content providers needs to provide IPv6 solutions to address the IPv4 exhaustion and global expansion of Internet enabled devices.
7. If vendors say that they are IPv6 ready, do not take this for granted. Many implementations have shown (interoperability) limitations when deployed. Inform the vendor of any issues so that this gets improved.
8. Basic IP address space allocation:
   a. /32 for Schuberg Philis
   b. /48 per customer environment
   c. /64 per smallest subnet (VLAN)
   d. /127 potentially for point-to-point links (on demand, implementation specific, not internet routable)

The Dual stack mechanism
an interesting solution to implement IPv6 is providing web services in a so called ‘dual stack’ setup. This means that content is provided both via IPv4 as via IPv6. There are several dual stack scenario’s.

Tore Anderson of Redpill Linpro AS discussed the following scenario, an IPv6 centric dual stack set up, his recommendation and in his opinion most future proof:

I found this an interesting view as it emphasizes on the majority of components within an IT (hosting) environment being IPv6 configured but only a small part of it being IPv4 capable. This scenario would lead to a more future proof set up, focusing on the phase out of IPv4 altogether.

A bogon is a …
Something I also learned but until this conference I’ve never heard of before, is a so called bogon.

It’s wikipedia definition is:

“a bogus IP address, and an informal name for an IP packet on the public Internet that claims to be from an area of the IP address space reserved, but has not yet been allocated or delegated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) or a delegated Regional Internet Registry (RIR).”

I actually found this quite funny because I’ve been around in this industry for some time now so I was somewhat surprised that I haven’t heard of this word before.

All in all,
This was a very interesting conference where I learned that IPv6 is inevitable and that the momentum is now to prepare for it. 6 June 2012 is the day to mark your agenda; it will be the day when IPv6 will permanently be turned on by many internet (content) providers.

Don Lee from Facebook and author of the Cisco Press book “Enhanced IP Services for Cisco Networks” argued; “It’s our job as IT professionals to make the transition to IPv6 as smooth as possible. The end users should not bother about it, much less as they bother nowadays about IPv4.”

And as Paul Zawacki, Enterprise Architect at Oracle so eloquently put; “IPv6 is a giant leap in IT evolution. It might very well be the most challenging moment in your professional career.”

I feel that these remarks are no understatements… Do you?