Some thoughts on IPv6

About 3 years ago when Windows Vista was on the horizon there has been a lot of talk around IPv6. But since then, at least in the environment I work in, it has become quiet around this topic. On Wikipedia we can read that based on a study from Google, penetration is still less than one percent of Internet traffic in any country

But nowadays we more often hear about the IPv4 Address exhaustion meaning that soon we will run out of IPv4 addresses. An interesting resource for this topic is the “IPv4 Address Report”.

While private companies at this stage don’t appear to see the urgency of moving towards IPv6 yet, many goverments have taken action. The European Commission has set a 25% IPv6 target for 2010 and in the United States plans exist as well to push IPv6 across the government agencies.

So while we are planning for Windows7 would it not make sense reconsidering the deployment of IPv6 technology ? Let’s take DirectAccess a new technology introduced with Windows7, allowing users to be seamlessly connected to their corporate network using IPv6 technology.

I personally think it is about time to think about IPv6 seriously now.