Scenario

For a few years, Pete, the CIO at Midsized University, had been hearing at professional meetings and from his IT staff that IPv6 was on the horizon, and he knew that much of the equipment the institution had purchased in recent years was IPv6 compatible. Busy with day-to-day responsibilities, though, Pete hadn’t found time to fully focus on the new Internet protocol. But then he heard about World IPv6 Day, June 8, 2011, when the Internet Society invited all IT staffers around the globe to test their respective IPv6 compatibility. Pete decided to capitalize on that opportunity to assess MU’s IPv6 needs.

He initiated a campus-wide project that gave every member of his staff specific responsibilities for testing particular elements of MU’s IT systems for compatibility with IPv6. Apart from assessing every dimension of MU’s networks, systems, security, and communications, their upcoming participation in World IPv6 Day also gave Pete and his staff an incentive to study IPv6 in depth. They were surprised to learn that aside from increasing Internet capacity by adding more Internet addresses, IPv6 brings a number of other potential benefits over IPv4, including greater efficiency of IT systems, streamlined systems administration, and security improvements.

But testing MU’s IT also showed Pete that the university had a lot of work to do to ensure full IPv6 compatibility. Some older pieces of equipment were not fully compatible with the new protocol and would have to be replaced. Clearly MU would have to invest considerable staff time and fiscal resources to convert fully from IPv4 to IPv6. Moreover, MU would need to support both protocols throughout a transition period that could last for years and would need to develop new systems to enable IPv4 and IPv6 to work with each other during the changeover. From an administrative standpoint, Pete also saw that IPv6 would require new institutional policies and practices.

A little daunted by the scope of the work that lay ahead—but relieved that he had finally jumped on the IPv6 bandwagon—Pete started a new IT project to plan and implement the new Internet protocol.

1. The Next Internet Protocol

Devices connected to the Internet have historically been identified by unique addresses that enable them to communicate. Internet protocols provide a vocabulary and rules that support that communication; for most of recent history that protocol has been IPv4. The rapid expansion in the use of the Internet, coupled with explosive growth in the number of devices that access it, has prompted development of a new protocol, IPv6, that accommodates more devices and speeds Internet traffic, while adding other improvements.

Developed in the 1970s, IPv4 was created when the Internet was envisioned essentially as a network of large systems owned by governments, research institutions, and a few corporations. In that context, IPv4’s capacity of some 4 billion addresses was seen as so vast that it would never be exhausted. While IPv4 has worked well for the requirements set out when it was developed, its creators did not anticipate that the Internet would become so vast or popular, accessed by billions of laptops, mobile devices, web servers, routers, game consoles, and other devices that continue to come online. In the early 1990s, recognizing that far more Internet addresses would be required, engineers started developing IPv6. With addresses built of 128 bits of information versus IPv4’s 32 bits, IPv6 offers some 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses.

2. Benefits Beyond Addresses

Apart from adding substantially to the number of available Internet addresses, IPv6 carries a number of other benefits. Among them, changes to the architecture might improve security, though security ultimately depends on proper configuration. In addition, IPv6 was designed to streamline the routing of information, which could make it possible to send larger packets of information more easily. That streamlining, along with IPv6’s capacity to offer enough IP addresses so that single devices can each have their own, should enable more mobile devices to come online, with the ability to process more data faster. IPv6 is also expected to simplify network administration, offering greater efficiencies, flexibility, and ease of use. Experts also predict that by restoring the “end-to-end transparency” on which the Internet was initially based, IPv6 will facilitate experimentation that will result in new kinds of applications and technologies. This end-to-end model, which eroded over time because of the increasing demand for addresses, facilitates simpler communication and encryption between devices.

3. The Time to Start is Now

Internet addresses are distributed in blocks by community trustees, such as the American Registry for Internet Numbers. It was once expected that all available IPv4 addresses would be fully distributed prior to 2008. Improvements in technology, coupled with an easing in demand for the Internet during the recent recession, slowed that demand. Nevertheless, the last unallocated block of IPv4 Internet addresses was distributed to the top-level registries in February 2011 (the registries themselves are expected to run out in weeks to months). Organizations that “own” addresses can still assign the unused ones, but no more new blocks of IPv4 addresses will be available.

The Internet has already started its transition to IPv6. The first allocation of IPv6 address space was made in April 1999, and manufacturers of hardware and software and network developers have been gradually making their products IPv6-compatible. Recently purchased IT equipment and services are likely to be IPv6 compatible. The final depletion of IPv4 addresses, however, signals that the time has come for universities to adapt in earnest to IPv6, which means procuring a block of the new IPv6 addresses and auditing existing IT services to identify what changes are needed to become fully IPv6-compatible.

4. What Do You Have, What Do You Need?

IPv6 compatibility has already been built into today’s predominant operating systems, including newer versions of Windows, Linux, Android, and Apple’s operating systems. But IPv6 has not been uniformly incorporated into other dimensions of IT systems. For example, certain routers and servers might not be compatible, and firewalls and load-balancers might also need upgrading to IPv6 compatibility. Colleges and universities will have to test whether their IT functions, from website access and e-mail to back-office operations, are compatible with IPv6 and, if necessary, make upgrades to ensure the continuity of key IT operations. Experts therefore advise universities to complete a thorough analysis of their IT systems for IPv6 compatibility and develop a plan for ensuring alignment with the new Internet protocol. Because the current status of IPv6 compatibility will differ from campus to campus, and because each institution has unique IT systems and needs, each institution needs to conduct its own analysis and testing process to determine its readiness for IPv6 and what steps it needs to take to be fully prepared. Among other things, this might have implications for an institution’s purchasing requirements for technology.

5. Recognize the Similarities, Mind the Differences

Because IPv4 and IPv6 share some architecture and design philosophy, the inherent assumptions, operating principles, and tools of IPv4 can guide the deployment of IPv6. Universities, however, still need to be intentional about developing new strategies and ways of working to accommodate IPv6. In practical terms, universities will need short- and long-term plans for migrating to IPv6, along with requisite budgets and timetables, and should prepare to provide additional training. During the transition, IT staff will need to support both protocols and build technical processes to enable interoperability between them. IPv6 might require network administrators and IT security personnel to develop a better understanding of each other’s respective responsibilities and engage in a new level of collaboration. The complexities of IPv6 suggest that some staff will move into new roles and develop new ways of working with each other. In general, IT leadership should be proactive and thoughtful in identifying, developing, and inculcating new business practices that support adaptation to IPv6.

6. Don’t Forget Policy

Universities should anticipate that the differences between IPv4 and IPv6 will require the development of new policies, such as for the allocation of new IPv6 addresses. Because IPv6 provides so many individual addresses, institutions might implement changes to their network configurations, as well as to the policies that govern connectivity to university networks. Longer term, IPv6 may raise the need for new policies regarding business continuity and IT security.

7. The Transition Won’t Happen Overnight

Even with the basic similarities between IPv4 and IPv6, the transition period from IPv4 to IPv6 is likely to be long, could be complicated, and will certainly consume staff and financial resources. One issue, for example, is that IPv6 is not backwards-compatible with IPv4. Ongoing effort will be necessary to bring IPv4-compatible system components in sync with IPv6. Accordingly, plans for phased deployment of IPv6 will be needed. It is unclear when a full switchover to IPv6 will be possible; one estimate suggests that the transition could take a decade.

One of the most challenging aspects of the transition may be the need to maintain a “dual stack” capacity during the transition that will support both IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously. This includes supporting both protocols independently and, in some cases, might also entail engineering solutions that enable communication between the two protocols. Many of these solutions are straightforward but nonetheless require careful planning and attention to detail. Another specific challenge is that of address management. Notations for IPv6 addresses use eight hexadecimal groups (for instance, e3d7:0000:0000:0000:51f4:9bc8:c0a8:6420), compared to the notations for IPv4 (such as 198.59.61.65). Although guidelines allow shorthand notations for IPv6 addresses, business processes will need to move to the new notations while accommodating both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses during the transition.

April 2011

© 2011 EDUCAUSE
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

educause.edu

EDUCAUSE 7 Things You Should Know About™…

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit membership association created to support those who lead, manage, and use information technology to benefit higher education. A comprehensive range of resources and activities are available to all EDUCAUSE members. For more information about EDUCAUSE, including membership, please contact us at info@educause.edu or visit educause.edu.