IPv6 tries, tries again

Today is the big day for IPv6. OK, that's been predicted for a long, long time. But really, today is the day when ICANN made the necessary adjustments to let users of version 6 of the Internet Protocol use the domain name system.

(Technically, ICANN announced that "IPv6 addresses were added for six of the world's 13 root server networks (A, F, H, J, K, M) to the appropriate files and databases. This move allows for the possibility of fuller IPv6 usage of the Domain Name System (DNS). Prior to today, those using IPv6 had needed to retain the older IPv4 addressing system in order to be able to use domain names.")

Yeah, I know. We've heard before that IPv6 is the future, and the future is now. Or at least very soon.

By now, we were supposed to long ago have run out of IPv4 addresses (a mere 4,294,967,296 IPv4 addresses available, some of which can't be used). But network address translation made that a lot less of a problem. The allure of IPv6's way-more-illions of IP addresses just isn't so alluring when we don't feel cramped by the shortage.

And by now, the features of IPv6 were supposed to make it irresistible to IPv4 users. But many of those features have been shoehorned into IPv4. They may not be kludges, but they work, mostly.

So should anyone care about IPv6 finally being able to use DNS without its own kludge? You bet. It's clear that there won't be a big-bang switchover to IPv6. It's just as clear that some networks will be IPv6 soon, big bang or not; the U.S. government long ago set June 30 as the deadline to convert its network backbones to IPv6. And yes, that's June 30 of this year.

That means we're likely to have two IP systems side-by-side for quite a while. Which is good -- change costs money, and this isn't the best time for selling a major infrastructure change requiring an insanely complicated technical explanation to the CEO. IPv4 isn't forever, but many IT shops it's definitely the foreseeable future.

Still, it's also positive news that, a decade after IBM started shipping systems with IPv6 capability, IPv6 is finally getting the support it needs on the public Internet.

Yeah, we don't have any plans for a switchover.

But one of these days we'll wake up to find out that a major customer has gone IPv6, and word we'll come down that we will be able to do whatever that customer requires.

Anything ICANN does to make that day a lot less like doomsday is a good thing.