IPv6 is the Future of the Internet!

IPv6 is the Future of the Internet!

The future of the Internet of Things (IoT) depends on the continued growth of a solid and heathy underlying global network infrastructure supporting the next generation of the Internet using IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) as its communication protocol.

In the era of IoT, without the extensive global adoption and successful deployment of IPv6 as the primary version of the Internet Protocol (IP), if not the only version of IP completely replacing IPv4, the future deployment and growth of IoT is impossible. Here are the reasons why:

First, IoT needs more IP addresses than IPv4 can provide.

According to Gartner’s estimation, by the year 2020 there will be more than 26 billion IoT devices connected to the Internet. Cisco has also projected that there would be more than 50 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020. In addition, according to one of most recent projections by Gartner, there will be 6.4 billion IoT devices connected to the Internet by the end of 2016.

However, IPv4 has only a total of 4.3 billion IP addresses. Even if all of the IPv4 addresses were available for use by IoT, the size of IPv4 itself is still not large enough to support the global IoT deployment, notwithstanding that not every single IoT devices, including some of the sensory objects, will need an IP address. Furthermore, the majority of the IPv4 addresses have already been depleted worldwide with only a minor exception in Africa, where only one Class A (/8) IPv4 addresses is available out of a total of six Class A IPv4 addresses allocated to AFRNIC (African Network Information Center) as of May 1, 2016. The remaining available IPv4 addresses allocated to Africa are projected to be depleted by March 31, 2018, if not sooner.

IPv6, on the other hand, has a total of 340 undecillion (that is 340 trillion trillion trillion) addresses, which is not only more than enough to support the anticipated 20 or 50 billion IoT devices to be connected to the Internet in the near future, but a whole lot more IP addresses that would be needed in the years to come.

If the Internet of Things will have anything to do with the Internet, if over 20 or 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet as many smart people and large think tanks have repeatedly predicated for the coming years, then there is NO other choice for us but to adopt IPv6 globally right now in order to support the global IoT deployment in the coming years.

IPv6 will not only be able to ensure that the IoT will become a reality but also be capable of continuing to support the underlying global network infrastructure of the Internet upon which IoT will be relying to survive and grow.

Second, Cloud Computing also needs more IP addresses, but we are running out of IPv4 addresses.

For the cloud service providers (CSP), cloud computing means building more and large data centers around the globe with redundancy, resiliency, and high availability.

With the current global trend of rapidly adopting and deploying cloud-based computing solutions, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), like the Microsoft Office 365, the CSPs are struggling to build more and more data centers around the world in order to meet the increasing global demands from the customers. Some CSPs, like Microsoft, when it chose to use IPv4 for its data centers to support its cloud computing initiative, it had to chase globally after the extremely limited IPv4 addresses and paid a very high price to buy those IPv4 addresses.

With the decreasing availability of the IPv4 addresses on the so-called second-hand IPv4 exchange market, the price to pay for IPv4 addresses will be increasingly higher. By some estimates, it could cost up to US$100 per IPv4 address in the near future. Unfortunately, most of those cost for the IPv4 addresses will be paid by the consumers eventually as the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will transfer the cost to their customers, such as by charging them higher monthly fees for using the static IPv4 addresses.

Third, adopting IPv6 only policy, will dramatically reduce the current cyber security threats and attacks.

It is a common sense that the moment we turn off IPv4, we will immediately achieve 100% reduction of the global cyber-attacks and security threats based on the current IPv4 stack. In addition, we will be able to achieve more than 50% overall reduction of those current cyber threats and attacks based on IPv4 and IPv6 individually as well as the combination of both.

Given what is happening nowadays about the cyber security breaches in both the public and private sectors, it may already be a foregone conclusion that we have lost the battle in the cyber warfare against the bad actors in the IPv4 stack. However, we may still have a fighting chance to win the war in the IPv6 stack. This may be the only chance that we have in order to gain the upper hand to fight against the bad actors in the era of IoT.

Moreover, given the fact we all face with the challenge of limited resources in fighting against the bad actors in the cyber warfare, why does anyone want to keep fighting two separate wars on two separate battlegrounds for both IPv4 and IPv6 instead of allocating the limited resources to focus on fighting, and hopefully winning, only one war based on the single stack of IPv6?

Fourth, IPv4 is only a beta version of the Internet.

According to Dr. Vint Cerf, one of the “fathers of the Internet” and co-inventor of the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) protocol suite, the IPv4 that we are using today is only “the experimental version of the Internet” and we have been using this beta version of his Internet protocol since 1983! In his words, as Dr. Cerf stated, IPv6 is the actual production version of the Internet for the 21^st century. Consequently, one would ask, why we keep using a beta version of the product in our production environment for so long?!

The focus of the discussions for everyone, especially for some of those in the private sector which currently is still behind the curve and continues to resist to fully adopt to use IPv6 as its primary IP stack for all of their products and services despite the demand by the U. S. federal government as the largest Information Technology (IT) customer in this country to use IPv6 for all new IT related investments, should be on the relationship between the critical need for supporting the future growth of digital economy and innovations based upon the Internet and the global adoption of IPv6 as the vital foundation supporting the future network infrastructure of the Internet.

It is simply a matter whether or not the future of the Internet will be able to survive without IPv6.

Finally, adopting IPv6 is a matter of leadership, vision, and competitive edge.

It is a big joke for many companies still keep saying that there is no demand for IPv6 from their consumers or their customers have not yet asked for IPv6, as most of their customers and the ordinary consumers will never ask for IPv6 from their service providers and/or product manufacturers! This is because the majority of the consumers do not know which version of IP is currently running in their electronic devices, let alone to be expected to ask for a different version of IP. Why should they care?

The real question is not whether or not there is a consumer demand for IPv6; the correct question that should be asked is whether or not the leadership of the company has the vision to ensure that it will have the competitive edge now and in the future for its products and services, and most importantly, to ensure that it will be able to compete with the rest of the world in order to survive in the new era of rapid technological innovations and revolutions based on the new version of the Internet Protocol (IPv6) as its foundation for the next generation of the Internet.

It will be very interesting to start tracking and studying now the relationship between the adoption rate of IPv6 and the survival rate of the companies in 10, 20, or 30 years, with special attention to the impact on the timing of their IPv6 adoption.

Many people would keep saying that there is no immediate money to be made by transitioning now to IPv6, but there is undoubtedly money to be made from IoT! By one estimate from Business Insider, there is at least a $6 trillion opportunity in IoT. Most importantly, it is a matter of leadership, vision, and competitive edge for many of the companies in the world to consider their future survivability in the era of IoT on a much larger global scale.

In short, the future innovations, the new technological developments, and the world digital economy based on the Internet will rely on the successful adoption and deployment of IPv6 globally as the foundation to support the global network infrastructure for the next generation of Internet.

The future growth and successful deployment of IoT cannot be achieved without the successful global adoption and deployment of IPv6, without which, there is no future of the Internet of Things.

IPv6 is not only the future of IoT, but also the future of the Internet!

Reference for this article: Sun, Charles (May 1, 2016) IPv6 is the Future of the Internet. http://ipv6czar.blogspot.com/2016/05/ipv6-is-future-of-internet.html.

Disclaimer: The views presented are only personal opinions and they do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government.