IPv6 is Key to Business Growth and Opportunities

The Internet has transformed the world, growing over the past 30 years into a burgeoning network that connects some 840 million hosts and over 2 billion users all around the globe. However, IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) addresses have run out, and in order for the Internet to continue sustaining its growth, IPv6 is needed.

Preparing for the Next Generation

Singapore sees the importance of IPv6 and IDA is the government agency tasked with catalysing the local business community to leverage the potential of IPv6 and prepare for the next phase of Internet growth.

"With the explosive growth in mobile devices including wireless handheld devices, the increasing popularity of cloud computing and the emergence of the ‘Internet Of Things’, which connects everything like appliances and vehicles to the Internet, the need for IP addresses becomes even more prevalent," said Leong Keng Thai, Deputy Chief Executive/Director-General (Telecoms & Post), IDA. "Given that the Internet is now part and parcel of many businesses and the accelerating rate of globalisation, business growth will inevitably be impacted should there be a shortage of Internet addresses."

Urgency in Asia

While the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses is a global phenomenon, the need for IPv6 is even more urgent in Asia where economic growth is quickest.

"There are zero blocks of IPv4 addresses left in Asia, yet it has used the most IPv4 addresses over the past year," said Tony Hill, Chair of Asia Pacific IPv6 Task Force, which assists in IPv6 production-level deployment and promotion of economies in the Asia Pacific region. "With 60 percent of the world’s population and housing the majority of global growth, IPv6 is primarily Asia’s problem."

In addition, an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report in 2007 noted that the only sustainable solution that can deliver economic and social opportunities for the future of the Internet economy is IPv6.

Even in the short to medium term, it makes business sense for companies in Singapore and Asia to aggressively ensure IPv6 capability in their Internet strategies. "Since 2000, many of the major trading nations like Japan, Korea, China, Australia, US, Europe and India have embarked on IPv6 roadmaps," said Hill. "Many of their deadlines for readiness are set for next year!"

With recent economic turmoil in U.S. and Europe, banks and businesses are shifting their focus to tap into the growth of Internet economies powered by rising Asian economies. It thus becomes imperative that these companies themselves are ready to efficiently handle IPv6 traffic.

For more info: http://www.ida.gov.sg/Technology/20111215115733.aspx

Leading ISPs, websites commit to June 6 start for IPv6

Several of the world's largest ISPs and websites have committed to permanently enabling IPv6 -- the next-generation Internet Protocol -- on their products and services starting June 6, 2012.

AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable were among seven global ISPs that have committed to this deadline, along with some of the world's most popular websites including Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Bing.

BACKGROUND: IPv6 due for wide deployment in 2012

RELATED: Google, Facebook promise new IPv6 services after successful trial

All of these companies announced Tuesday that they are meeting this deadline as participants of an event dubbed World IPv6 Launch, which is being organized by the Internet Society.

"The fact that leading companies across several industries are making significant commitments to participate in World IPv6 Day Launch is yet another indication that IPv6 is no longer a lab experiment; it's here and is an important next step in the Internet's evolution," said Leslie Daigle, the Internet Society's chief information technology officer, in a statement.

The ISPs participating in World IPv6 Launch have agreed to enable IPv6 for enough users so that at least 1% of their wireline residential subscribers will use IPv6 to visit IPv6-enabled websites. Other participating ISPs include Japan's KDDI, France's Free Telecom, Australia's Internode and the Netherlands' XS4ALL.

IPv6 is a replacement for IPv4, the Internet's main communications protocol which is running out of address space. IPv6 is not backward-compatible with IPv4, so network and website operators must upgrade their hardware and software to support it. IPv6 features an expanded addressing scheme that can support billions of devices connected directly to the Internet.

"We've seen unprecedented growth in network traffic over the past several years, and IPv6 is critical to the continuation of that growth," said John Donovan, CTO of AT&T, in a statement released Tuesday. "We're excited to participate in World IPv6 Launch by enabling IPv6 services for new and existing residential customers in addition to the enterprise customers we support with IPv6 today."

MORE: Comcast expands IPv6 services into four more states

The participating websites such as Facebook and Google have agreed to permanently enable IPv6 on their main websites beginning June 6. Content delivery networks Akamai and Limelight also have agreed to enable IPv6 throughout their infrastructures by this deadline to enable their customers to support the new protocol in production mode.

"World IPv6 Launch marks a watershed moment in Internet history," commented Vint Cerf, chief Internet evangelist at Google. "Google strongly supports this upgrade. We're happy to see that everyone is moving to the 21st-Century Internet!"

Additionally, two home networking equipment manufacturers -- Cisco and D-Link -- have agreed to enable IPv6 by default through the range of their home router products by the June 6 deadline.

World IPv6 Launch is a follow-on event to the original World IPv6 Day, which was held on June 8, 2011. The highly successful 2011 event attracted 400-plus corporate, government and university participants that deployed IPv6 on more than 1,000 websites for the day.

Source: http://www.cio.com.au/article/412614/leading_isps_websites_commit_june_6_start_ipv6/

IPv6 Competency for Government Agencies in Singapore Seminar, 22 Feb 2012

Date: 22 Feb 2012 (Thurs)     Time: 1.30pm - 5.00pm
Venue: YMCA International House  One Orchard Road S(238824)

Tan Chin Tuan Room (Level 4) Event Overview

As of 15 April 2011, APNIC has reached the final /8 block of IPv4 adddresses which triggered a very strict delegation policy. This means that we will soon see IPv6 only hosts in Asia Pacific.

To address the depletion of IPv4 addresses, IPv6 was designed to replace IPv4. IPv6 has several technical advantages over IPv4, such as simplifying aspects of network renumbering and improvements in multicasting and routing speeds.

Although both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic can flow over the same physical medium, IPv4-only nodes are not able to communicate directly with IPv6 nodes and vice-versa. The new nodes that are assigned with IPv6 addresses will not be able to reach existing IPv4 resources without transition mechanisms. This will in turn impact the growth of Internet contents and services, the growth of Internet-dependent businesses and business continuity. For smooth transition, concerted actions from various stakeholders in the ecosystem are required.

In this half day seminar, we aim to provide the necessary information with regards to the IPv6 transition mechanisms and the latest updates on the IPv6 Competency Programme. This programme is supported by IDA to help ICT professionals with the funding support on the IPv6 Forum Certified Network Engineer Courses that allows the trainees to build capabilities, deepen their IPv6 technology migration skills and upgrade themselves in the dynamic, competitive and fast changing infocomm industry.

Who Should Attend:

IT professionals who are familiar with the basic concepts of TCP/IP such as IT Managers, Network Engineers, Network Administrators, Network Consultants & Decision Makers who need to acquire basic IPv6 knowledge and understand the opportunities that lies ahead with IPv6.

For more event information, click here.