Engineering Lessons, IPv6 Edition
Yes, we really are going to reach a point where the RIRs will run out of IPv4 addresses. As this chart from Geoff’s blog shows —
Why am I thinking about this? Because I ran across a really good article by Geoff Huston over at potaroo about the state of the IPv4 address pool at APNIC. The article is a must read, so stop right here, right click on this link, open it in a new tab, read it, and then come back. I promise this blog isn’t going anyplace while you’re over on Geoff’s site. But my point isn’t to ring the alarm bells on the IPv4 situation. Rather, I’m more interested in how we got here in the first place. Specifically, why has it taken so long for the networking industry to adopt IPv6?
Inertia is a tempting answer, but I’m not certain I buy this as the sole reason for lack of deployment. IPv6 was developed some fifteen years ago; since then we’ve deployed tons of new protocols, tons of new networking gear, and lots of other things. Remember what a cell phone looked like fifteen years ago? In fact, if we’d have started fifteen years ago Continue reading