A number of reports by market research giant Frost & Sullivan have

prompted many calls for business to wake up and prepare for the

inevitable move to IPv6.  A recent report by Australian iTnews quotes Frost &

Sullivan’s principal analyst for the area in saying “2012, that’s when

we estimate the world will be out of IPv4 addresses,”.  So less than 6

years, this is also backed up by a report from Cisco

who predict that if growth in IP usage continues to grow at the current

rate, we’ll run out within 7 years.  The huge demand for smartphones and

similar devices is suggested to be behind the surge of uptake.

There is of course the opposing opinion that with sensible use, IPv4 can

last much longer–the use of NAT being heralded as our saviour. 

However, IPv6 and it’s inbuilt security features combined with the huge

address pool will restore end to end computing, greatly aiding P2P

applications and mobility/roaming.

IPv6 is coming, it may be 5 years away but given the huge amount of

planning involved it’s probably worth starting to read up and getting

ahead of the game.