IPv6: The essential guide

Network World - Been meaning to catch up on IPv6, the next generation Internet Protocol? We've backtracked and collected a handful of stories that will get you up to speed well before IPv4 addresses run out.

Slideshow: Evolution of the Internet 

QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS

Invisible IPv6 traffic poses serious network threat: Even if you haven't made the move to IPv6 yet, you might unwittingly have IPv6 traffic on your network, and that's probably not a good thing since you're probably not set up to see, manage or block it. And that could be opening the door for IPv6 traffic that includes attacks such as botnet command and controls. Read full story. 

Biggest mistake for IPv6 is that it's not backwards compatible, developers admit: The Internet engineering community says its biggest mistake in developing IPv6 is that it lacks backwards compatibility with IPv4. Leaders of the IETF have admitted that they didn't do a good enough job making sure native IPv6 devices and networks would be able to communicate with their IPv4-only counterparts when they designed the industry standard 13 years ago. Read full story. 

No business case for IPv6, survey finds: Business incentives are completely lacking today for upgrading to IPv6, the next generation Internet protocol, according to a survey of network operators conducted by the Internet Society (ISOC). ISOC says that ISPs, enterprises and network equipment vendors report that there are "no concrete business drivers for IPv6." However, survey respondents said customer demand for IPv6 is on the rise and that they are planning or deploying IPv6 because they feel it is the next major development in the evolution of the Internet. Read full story. 

EARLY ADOPTERS

IPv6 helps university go green: Ave Maria University, a liberal arts college near Naples, Fla., is looking to adopt IPv6 across its two data centers and all of its facilities management systems, which are used for monitoring building access, temperature control and power management. The goal: improved energy conservation across its campus. Read full story. 

Google says IPv6 is easy, not expensive: Google engineers say it was not expensive and required only a small team of developers to enable all of the company's applications to support IPv6. “We can provide all Google services over IPv6,” said Google network engineer Lorenzo Colitti during an IETF meeting earlier this year. Colitti said a “small, core team” spent 18 months enabling IPv6, from the initial network architecture and software engineering work, through a pilot phase, until Google over IPv6 was made publicly available. Read full story: 

AT&T builds $23M IPv6 network for U.S. military: AT&T is building a production-quality IPv6 data network for the U.S. Army in Germany that will cost approximately $23 million when it is completed next year. AT&T is installing and testing a new campus data network, which will support Army personnel at 600 JMTC buildings. AT&T says the installation will be complete in January 2010. Read full story.