The Internet is running out of IP addresses
In January, the internationally managed pool of yet-unclaimed IP addresses ran dry and the independent authorities that allocate addresses to organisations have started rationing allocations. Bad news for any business, especially since the market for networked mobile devices (and services based on them) is growing exponentially.
The venerable Internet Protocol version 4 (Ipv4) created over 30 years ago allowed 4.3 billion addresses. It was a simpler time, and with a mere 200 computers online the number of addresses must have seemed staggering.
Today is a different story. We are putting more and more types of devices on the net; from servers, laptops and smartphones, to cars, thermostats and door locks and now the internet is running out of IP addresses.
Luckily, the next generation of the Internet Protocol, IP version 6 (IPv6) has been here for years. It's a mature, streamlined and secure protocol designed with an eye for the future. IPv6 gives us too many addresses for the human brain to make sense of (it's a 39-digit number!) and the number of addresses allows networks to be simplified; increasing resilience and speed.
More than that, IPv6 represents a guarantee of growth and business continuity at a time when business needs it most. Having IPv6 support is highly desirable NOW and business practices and practicalities may very well make it mandatory in the future.
Here at CIVIC, we have always been committed to a secure, elegant network infrastructure. Our internal networks have been IPv6-ready for years and we have extended this support to our hosted websites.
We are offering our clients all our services via IPv6, alongside our existing rock-solid IPv4 infrastructure. Many existing clients have already been migrated and we are in consultation with others concerning their future-proofing needs.
In addition, our future clients can receive our ‘dual stack’ service where both IPv4 and IPv6 are provided, making their future safe in our hands.