ICANN starts migration to IPv6

THE GOVERNING body that oversees Internet access and protocols, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), began adding Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) records to its root domain name servers yesterday.

ICANN has added IPv6 addresses to six of the world's 13 root server networks. Prior to yesterday, IPv6 users had to also retain IPv4 addresses in order to use domain names.

IPv6, which has been under implementation development for ten years, is an extension of the IPv4 addressing protocol presently in use by the vast majority of network users outside academic computer science departments and some high-tech enterprises. The ICANN regulations constraining the availability of IPv6 addressing ranges are being relaxed.

The twenty year old IPv4 protocol is running out of unallocated IP addresses. The IPv4 addressing space is expected to fill up by no later than 2017 -- sooner than that if everyone buys Internet addressable cell phones. Only about 14 per cent of the total IPv4 addressing space presently remains available.

The IPv6 protocol extends the 32-bit addressing space of the IPv4 protocol to 128-bits, greatly increasing the maximum IP addressing range from somewhat over 4 billion discrete IPv4 addresses to more than 340 trillion trillion trillion individual IPv6 addresses. That's enough IP addresses to put an individually IP addressable RFID chip into practically world+dog+cat - plus every consumer product manufactured on the planet from now until the heat death of the Sun.

The IPv6 protocol also mandates that implementations support stateless host autoconfiguration, IPsec security protection and multicast sessions.

So, the ramp-up to universal adoption of IPv6 all across the Internet starts now. We think it will give a boost to the domain registrars' businesses and IPv6-savvy networking geeks' employment prospects and pay packets. µ

L'INQ
BetaNews