[arin-discuss] Implementing IPv6

[Owen DeLong]

On Feb 27, 2013, at 10:47 AM, Mike A. Salim <msalim at localweb.com> wrote:

> Is IPv4 space "really" running out any time soon?  Since "wolf" was cried almost two years ago and the sky didn't fall yet, I do not see an immediate mass rush to IPv6 coming yet.

Depends on how you define "running out".

1.	The IANA free pool was empty 2 years ago (3 February, 2011).
2.	APNIC reached their austerity policy 2 years ago (15 April, 2011)[1]
3.	RIPE NCC reached their austerity policy last year (14 September, 2012)[2]

It is not unlikely that ARIN will run out either this year or next.
LACNIC and AfriNIC may last considerably longer.

[1] APNIC's austerity policy began when their free pool contained only a single /8. The policy allows each organization to request a single /22 and makes no provision for any organization to get any additional IPv4 space beyond that /22.
[2] RIPE's austerity policy began when their free pool contained only a single /8. The policy allows an LIR to receive a /22 if they already have an IPv6 allocation. No new IPv4 PI space is to be assigned in the RIPE region.

So I guess it really depends on how you define "the sky has fallen". I would argue that the sky has fallen on Europe and Asia to at least some extent. According to ipv4.potaroo.net, ARIN is most likely to run out around the middle of next year.
I suspect for a number of reasons that it may well come earlier than that.

> There is probably no "one size fits all" checklist.  For example, how much practical attention is being paid to IPv6 security at this point? Zero to none as far as I can tell.  I am having a hard time finding any commercial or open source IPv6 monitoring tools that will just tell me if my http is alive over IPv6, let alone IPv6 specific security tools.
> 

Indeed, each organization has a unique network and a unique set of goals and tradeoffs for making changes to their network. As such, each organization will need to develop their own unique path to IPv6 deployment and later IPv4 deprecation.

Owen