IPocolypse

Maintstream IPv6 is inching closer

Over the last year I’ve written about the importance of developing your IPv6 skills now, and about how you should be looking at what kind of IPv6 support your vendors of choice have to offer. Some of you might think I’m being a Chicken Little by devoting any space to the advance of IPv6. IPv4 is the dominant version of Internet Protocol and widespread use of IPv6 is still years off, most of you say. Most of the networking pros and many of the vendors whom I talk to say its not something worth thinking about right now. There is plenty else to worry about.

Indeed, you may react to an IPv6 story or tip like I react to those commercials I’ve been seeing about the transition from analog to digital television broadcasts scheduled for February. “Upgrade your TVs today because in February TV stations will cease to broadcast analog signals. Yes, this means YOU, you folks who don’t have cable or satellite television. Vast multidues of you will be unable to watch NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX and PBS unless you buy a new TV or get a digital converter box… Or you could just get cable.”

Yes, I usually flip the channel when I see those commercials. If you’re reading this blog, it’s likely that you aren’t one of the 7.8 million Americans who will be affected by the end of analog TV, either. But chances are good that you should be paying attention to IPv6 because it is getting closer.

In a new research note entitled IPv4 Address Exhaustion: An Inconvenient Truth (client log-in required), analyst Jeff Young predicts that IPv4 addresses will run out in November 2011. That’s less than two years away. And you don’t want to wait until then to start planning for a transition. IPv4 addresses could start getting pricey. There is still no backwards compatibility between IPv4 and IPv6, which means that when IPv6-only hosts start cropping up on the Internet in a couple years, there could be large swaths of the Internet that these hosts can’t talk to. Any company that relies on IP networks to conduct business will want to have a handle on this transition early.

Cisco tightens their belt while Aruba sharpens the ax

The notoriously frugal Cisco is tightening their belts a little tighter, more or less shutting their offices over the holidays and freezing hiring for a bit. They hope to save $2 billion, which isn’t small change even for the world’s largest networking equipment provider.

They also are looking to cut travel expenses, and since Cisco insiders tell us everyone at the company flies coach to begin with, we guess that means more TelePresence. Layoffs, however, are not planned, at least for now, according to Dow Jones Newswires:

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) doesn’t have any layoffs planned at this point, according to Chairman and Chief Executive John Chambers. …

Chambers, speaking to analysts at a conference hosted by Credit Suisse, said that if the company was to have layoffs, it would be a one-time event, rather than a string of events.

Sounds like he’s hedging his bets, just in case, but it might be tough to cut the fat from Cisco’s already lean (for a company of their size) operation.

Aruba isn’t so optimistic. The company announced they will be cutting jobs to reduce operating costs by 10%, though the exact number getting laid off is unknown.

This is despite Aruba’s record revenues last quarter, which, according to Farpoint Group’s Craig Matthias, came at a price:

“If you look at Aruba’s margins, they have eroded some, and obviously discounting is a heavy element in winning deals,” Mathias said. “So I’m expecting that their margins probably won’t improve much with their sales. But this is an industry that will continue to grow, and it will accelerate into the future.”

It also calls into question what wireless vendors keep whispering to me: Their equipment — and business prospects — are counter-cyclical. The theory goes that wireless is a great way to cut costs: No more having to futz around to rewire desk connections, less physical wiring to lay down, etc. etc. But with such a crowded field of vendors, even the winners might have a tough time staying or getting profitable.

Further Reading:

• IT economic outlook: Not so good
• Aruba to Customers: Get 200% more WLAN bandwidth, free!: Aruba in more charitable times … a month ago.
• Overheard: How to keep your IT job during a recession

Repent! Repent! The IPv4 end is near!

That’s the message received when I got on the phone with Arbor Networks’ Scott Iekel-Johnson and Haakon Ringberg, the authors of the recent buzz-generating report that found true IPv6 adoption is staggeringly low, and network engineers might agree .

Ringberg said there were any number of metaphors that could apply, ranging from the classic chicken and egg to the more ominous slowly moving train or, Stephen King-esque, slowly rising water. But the real point, he said, is just because there’s plenty of IPv4 addresses for all today, they’re eventually going to go the way of the slow-moving Dodo, and service providers and IT departments alike need to be ready.

“When the critical moment comes, [IT departments] might not have enough time to get ready,” he said. “Their job right now is to be pushing the vendors to be ready to make the switch.”

But doesn’t that nifty IPv4-IPv6 tunneling mechanism solve these issues? Aren’t we OK migrating 1% at a time (as the report states our current migration status is)? No!

“They’re really not compatible,” said Iekel-Johnson, who said IPv6 adoption needed to be end-to-end to get the full benefits designed into the protocol, and these half-baked implementations lead to hackery such as the over-use of NAC and a generally less-reliable network.

“The end is coming, whether it happens in 2011 or 2015, no one can be sure, but the date is coming when the switch will be necessary,” said Ringberg, and those who ignore his words do so at their own peril. “It’s always cheaper to migrate to these solutions over a long period of time.”

Further Reading:

• Arbor Networks original post on the topic
• Carriers begin quietly deploying IPv6, complete with strained chicken metaphor
• What networking vendors are doing to get IPv6 ready, sans chicken.