Internet Protocol Version 6 – more commonly known as IPv6 – is designed to replace the previous (and still currently widely used) Version 4 protocol, IPv4. The latter was designed to provide about four billion unique Internet IP addresses, whereas IPv6 supports a whopping 3.4 × 1038 (340 undecillion) unique addresses.

An IP address is a unique number – analogous to a telephone number – used by machines (and their end users) to communicate with each other on the Internet. An example of an IPv4 address is 207.142.131.236. The IPv4 address is specified as four integer octets ranging from 0 to 255 each. The IP address’ four octets are separated by periods.

An IPv6 address is represented in hexadecimal form, such as 1080:0:0:0:0:800:0:417A. Strings of zeros can be left out, so that 1080::800:0:417A is the same as the above example.
 
When the Internet was originally designed, the computing and communications environment was vastly different from today’s situation. Four billion unique addresses seemed sufficient for the entire planet’s networking needs. But as we will explore in this article, the world today is a different place, and the near future promises to bring even further demand for unique IP addresses.

While initially not much more than a computer science experiment in educational institutions, IPv6 is now no longer just a phenomenon in the research community, and is really starting to take off, especially in Asia. Asia is one of the leading deployment regions of the world for IPv6, with one of the reasons being that Asian countries with huge Internet population growth are seriously facing shortage of IPv4 Internet addresses, especially when one considers the increasing number of Internet-capable handheld, business and household devices. Also, strong government directives and funding in many countries have been promoting IPv6 capability.
Countries such as Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, India, Malaysia, and Singapore are carrying out large scale IPv6 trials and getting ready for commercial IPv6 rollout.  All recent orders for new IP networking equipment have IPv6-support as a key criterion.

Among these countries, Japan will likely be the first country to fully adopt IPv6.  China and Korea will likely follow next.  Other Asian countries will gradually deploy IPv6 over the next 2 to 3 years.

Japan is special in this regard, as the government has mandated IPv6 initiatives that will drive Japan to emerge as an IPv6 leader when the rest of the world decides to fully utilize IPv6. The motivation is in the vast array of consumer electronics and business equipment in Japanese society. Although we may say that each person can get an IP address under IPv4, if everyone also has a mobile phone, a portable digital television, a laptop, a PDA, a game console, and so on, then the number of IP addresses needed would increase by five or ten times. Add all the various other items inside the home (refrigerator, air-conditioner, Hi-Fi, and other appliances) and there is even more demand for unique IP addresses.

The same trend is happening in South Korea, and in China. And for the China market, there is even more pressure to provide IP addresses to people, because of the enormous population. You’ll see the same thing in Taiwan. Everyone in Taiwan can get an IP address under IPv4, but if you add in the gadgets, appliances, and computing devices, you need more address-space.

There are workarounds to try and expand the IPv4 address space, for more devices, and we probably use them every day. At home, or in the office, we probably use NAT – Network Address Translation – to create subnets that allow our gateways to distribute private IP addresses, and share a small pool of “real” IPv4 addresses. But this is just a stopgap solution. What we really need are permanent IP addresses for people and for devices, if we are to really take advantage of the wonderful potential that networked applications can bring about.

However, because every device, and person, would be assigned a unique IP address under IPv6, there is the potential for every one of these addresses to be attacked by hackers. Therefore, robust network security is essential. Network security is critical today, but it would become even more crucial in IPv6, when most appliances can be activated or deactivated over the network.

All of Juniper Networks routing and security products fully support IPv6. This is not a recent addition. Juniper products have been IPv6-compliant since the earliest days of the company. We have always envisioned and anticipated this need, and IPv6 is one of the key underpinnings of the Intranet vision which we share with other key technology vendors. We’ve also built in native IPv6 across our entire product line, from routing infrastructure to network security appliances because we know IPv6 is going to become essential, not just a “nice to have” feature.

Although not all organizations will want to adopt IPv6 right now, unique opportunities would be missed if a company doesn’t eventually adopt IPv6. There are more workers today who use, and need, computing support via PDAs and mobile workstations. Wireless connectivity, on the road and in the field, is becoming essential to everyone, not just field sales people. All of this means there is going to be strong demand for IP addresses within the organization.

Also, governments are going to start mandating IPv6 compliance. Even if a business has only a simple online presence (and most businesses today have at least a website) then they may well be obligated to gain IPv6 compliance.

IPv6 is actually part of a vision, which Juniper Networks shares, that describes a publicly accessible communications network providing carrier-grade digital services to everyone.

As we move towards that ideal network – called an “Infranet” – in today’s deployment of Voice over IP, video-on-demand, broadcast digital video, video conference, and the like, we will need reliable, high-performance networks to ensure satisfaction. You have to ensure top SLA delivery because many of these services are real time and heavy on bandwidth. IPv6 will allow the proper distribution of addresses between end-points, but the path from A to B still needs equipment that can deliver. IPv6 tells the network where things should go.