3rd February 2011 is the day that IANA (The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) finally assigned the last five /8 blocks (slash-eight blocks), one to each Regional Internet Registry (RIR).

Now the IPv4 Internet only has the stock of IPv4 addresses held by the regional registrars and Internet Service Provides (ISPs) to keep it going.

If you have not yet implemented or migrated to IPv6 then now is the time to do so. World-wide the move to IPv6 is rapidly gaining momentum as a result of the exhaustion of the IPv4 address pool. IPv6 is the only solution to the Internet address shortage. It is well developed and well understood. There are many good reasons to implement IPv6 and few down sides.

As a first stage in implementing IPv6, it is crucial that you train your staff. IPv6 is not simply IPv4 with longer addresses. There are many more differences between IPv6 and IPv4.

The differences do indeed start with changes to addresses, but they are not simply in the size of the addresses but also the types of addresses, their attributes and the way they are used. In addition to this, IPv6 includes many new features and makes better use of some of the features found in IPv4. For example, in IPv6 ICMPv6 is used for many critical functions. In IPv4, it is often possible to ignore ICMP, in IPv6 you cannot. This is one small example of the way in which IPv6 is different from IPv4. Others include, use of mulitcast, mobility, IPSec, QoS and the huge area of transitiom mechanisms.

So IPv6 education is critical.

Erion has been providing IPv6 services for over twelve years. As a part of this we provide the world’s most comprehensive and well-developed IPv6 training courses. Erion’s IPv6 training covers all aspects of IPv6, for all audiences, across all major platforms and operating systems. Erion’s certified IPv6 trainers and IPv6 training courses represent the best in the industry. Our customers include many of the world’s leading IT names, for example, Alcatel-Lucent, Arbor Networks, Atos Origins, BAA, BT, Cisco, Ericsson, France Telecom, HP, IBM, The International Telecommunications Union, Microsoft, Orange and Research in Motion.

For more details regarding Erion’s IPv6 training courses see http://www.ipv6training.com.

Copyright Erion Ltd 2011, all rights reserved.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 4th, 2011 at 3:31 pm and is filed under IPv6, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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