IANA, the Internet authority, has assigned its last batches of IPv4 addresses to the RIRs (Regional Internet Registries), putting pressure on companies to adopt IPv6. See the Irish IPv6 Task Force for more information, particularly the last two Irish IPv6 Summits in 2010 and 2009, lots of good slides and videos on-line.
Geoff Huston's prediction model now cites only the next projected deadline, when RIR's allocation will run out. His prediction model for the IANA /8 pool, that I have been tracking since 2005, has now reached its reality checkpoint: 1st Feb 2011.
So in a very real way today marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as we know it. This morning, the Internet authority IANA allocated two batches of IPv4 addresses to APNIC, the regional Internet registry of the Asia Pacific, leaving just five batches (known as /8s) in the global pool.
Some time ago, the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) agreed that, when IANA got down to the last five /8s, IANA would allocate them automatically to the five RIRs, regardless of whether or not those registries needed more IP addresses at the time. That day has arrived, meaning that IANA’s stock of IPv4 addresses is now fully depleted.
I am tempted to say "The end of the world is neigh!" but in fact things will continue much as normal for some time. The point is that when the RIRs run out, that's it, no more IPv4 (or very expensive recycled IPv4). So we have probably less than one year to migrate to IPv6, if want the Internet to continue to be able to grow. Of course this is not feasible, so we are now pretty much guaranteed a messy overlap period of a fully allocated IPv4 Internet that cannot grow any further co-existing with a fresh new IPv6 world that has not yet grown to be the same size, but will do so over time (years? decades?). I really hope we can push people to migrate quickly, as I like the idea of an Internet that can grow, and I hope you do too.
Please Act Now!
Update 2011-02-03
And I'm quoted here: Silicon Rebublic, Internet to run out of available IP addresses tomorrow (based on what was said at the previous Irish IPv6 Summit in May 2010).
Tweet Posted by mofoghlu at February 1, 2011 2:38 PM | TrackBack