The push for IPv6 adoption

This month marks the 4th “Launchiversary” for IPv6 adoption. The movement has sparked a great deal of controversy, reminiscent of the great Y2K debacle. But as of this week, there is still only 12% IPv6 adoption in the world. (Google)

The push for IPv6 adoption has recently become more of an urgent cry as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow at a rapid rate. To clarify, each of these “things” must have a unique identifier, an IP address, in order to be found on the Internet. Until recently, these things were using IPv4 addresses, which were originally deployed in 1983. The problem is, IPv4 addresses only allow for 32-bits per address. That means there are only 4,294,967,296 possible combinations or addresses.

This gets pretty scary when you realize that there are 3.4 billion people using the Internet. (Source) Doubly scary, when you realize that according to Gartner, this year there will be over 6.4 billion “things” in use and connected to the Internet. To put that in perspective, that’s 30 percent greater than the previous year. Now more than ever, it is crunch time for ISP’s and organizations to make the switch to the new system. IPv4 armageddon is real, with numerous countries currently running out of IPv4 addresses.

But there is hope

IPv6 addresses can have up to 128-bits per address, as opposed to only 32 for IPv4. That means there over:

340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible IPv6 addresses.

Does this mean we will never have to worry about running out of addresses again? Quite possibly, yes. The problem is organizations need to embrace the future of technology and make the transition to IPv6.

Naming and identifying is one thing, but how do you monitor and manage all of these “things”? The massive growth of the IoT has put increasing demands on managed DNS and network monitoring providers. Third party DNS companies are having to process exponentially more queries per second to keep up with the growth. Network security risks are at all an all-time high, with scope and size of attacks becoming almost overwhelming. This year marked the largest recorded DDoS attack of all time, peaking at over 500 Gbps.

Many people think these attacks or risks won’t affect them, because they don’t interact with these “things”. However, what they don’t realize is IoT in the very near future will become a part of everyone’s lives whether they directly interact with the “things” or not. For example, self-driving cars will soon become the norm on our highways. These cars are dependent on reliable and secure Internet connections.

In 2017, four out of five cars will be connected to the Internet. (Source)

This crosses the line, putting our physical safety at risk. Each of these cars will need their own IPv6 address, which puts added pressure on management and security services.

The solution is here

So how can providers be expected to maintain optimal DNS performance? There are a handful of DNS management platforms that have met these challenges with next-gen networks and intelligent query routing services. It will continue to be an uphill battle, as not only are the number of things growing, but the problems and risks associated with each new thing create exponentially more demand.

The network engineers at Constellix have developed a platform that hopes to abate all of these issues, and provide users with an intelligent and reliable platform to manage their traffic. While the platform is currently in beta, it has already cemented Constellix as an ITOS industry leader. What is ITOS? Internet Traffic Optimization Services, which encompass all facets of the online experience from each individual query to server to rack and beyond. Constellix takes a unique approach to ITOS by providing an integrated platform that allows users to monitor, analyze, and then receive intelligent routing suggestions to implement in their DNS configurations… that’s all within the same suite!

To learn more, stay tuned for our upcoming ebook which details tips and tricks on how to implement ITOS as a part of your traffic management.

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