Is IPv6 A Solution In Search Of A Problem?
A few weeks ago, David Siegel of Global Crossing looked at some high-profile websites and found that none of them have made the switch to IPv6, the supposed replacement for today’s 32-bit Internet addressing scheme. The IPv6 protocols have been finalized for a decade, and major operating systems have supported it for several years, so one would expect Internet-savvy companies like Google and Microsoft to have started running IPv6 versions of their sites. But it appears that so far, nothing of the sort has happened. Indeed, progress toward an IPv6-based Internet appears to be at a virtual standstill.
Ok, they got that right…
The situation becomes less mysterious when one realizes that the primary rationale for the switch to IPv6 — the exhaustion of the IP address space — is basically bogus.
Oops, strong words that may have to be eaten some day…
The x86 platform had extremely broad support in the industry, and it has turned out that the costs of limping along with a crappy architecture are smaller than the costs of switching to an entirely new one. I think something similar may be true of IPv4 addressing.
Bingo! Two out of three is not bad, I suppose…