IPv6: Five Things IT Managers Need to Know Before Migrating

If you're like most IT managers, an IP version 6 (IPv6) migration has not been your top priority. And while there is still time to make the move, you should start planning a migration now.
To get you started, here are five essential things you need to know about conducting an IPv6 migration, as well as where you can get some help in planning your migration:
1. What's held up migration to IPv6? Inertia, mostly. There has been no pressing need to move off of IPv4. From a business perspective, there was no killer app that absolutely needed IPv6.
Additionally, there have been plenty of IPv4 addresses to go around. Thanks to technologies such as Network Address Translation (NAT) and Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR), IPv4 addresses could be used more efficiently. For example, organizations could use assigned IPv4 addresses for all devices that interfaced to the Internet and public networks, while maintaining a custom address scheme for devices within the organization.
Furthermore, when enhanced features of IPv6, like native IP Security (IPSec) security or quality of service (QoS), were needed, there were alternatives. For example, companies could use VPN and other software that provided IPSec support. That way, they retained the IPv4 addressing while bolting on the more robust security. To get QoS-like capabilities, a company could use traffic monitoring and bandwidth allocation techniques to prioritize select traffic running over its network.

Networking equipment, like the Cisco XR 12000 Series Routers, already supports IPv6 (source: Cisco).

2. Why do you need to be concerned with IPv6 now? After years of warnings that IPv4 addresses were running out, this time the threat seems to be real. eWEEK Labs and other industry experts believe IPv4 addresses will likely be exhausted by next year. Registries such as the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) that allocate IP addresses estimate that only about 6 or 7 percent of IPv4 addresses remain available now. Demand is expected to grow due to the proliferation of mobile devices and the growing use of the Internet and mobile phones by people around the world (particularly in China).
3. There are technical differences between IPv6 and IPv4. Each IPv4 address is 32 bits long, while an IPv6 address is 128 bits long. This means there are 2³² unique IPv4 addresses versus 2¹²⁸ unique IPv6 addresses. "That is enough for many trillions of addresses to be assigned to every human being on the planet," according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The enormous number of IPv6 addresses allows for end-to-end communication between devices, and can better support peer-to-peer communications.
Other technical features of IPv6 are support for plug-and-play networking and auto-configuration, native IPSec support, simplified routing due to the hierarchical structure of the IPv6 address headers, an enhanced protocol (Mobile IPv6) that supports roaming of a mobile network node, and QoS-enhanced policy-based networking to prioritize the delivery of information.