<em>An IPv4 packet walks into a bar and says “Give me a CIDR, I’m exhausted.”</em>

This past Wednesday, June 6<sup>th</sup>, 2012 was World IPv6 Day.  Major ISPs, web companies and networking equipment manufacturers joined forces to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services - <a href="http://www.worldipv6day.org/">http://www.worldipv6day.org/</a> .

<strong>Fantastic.  Now what?</strong>

For the average user, it may have been a little anti-climactic. The internet worked the same for them as it did on Tuesday. For companies like Google and Facebook, it marked the point of no return for supporting IPv6 to the world, and their customers.  Here’s <a href="http://www.networkcomputing.com/ipv6-tech-center/240001572?pgno=1">A Snapshot of IPv6</a> and a few facts and figures to help put this world-wide event in perspective as written by Mike Fratto with Network Computing.

If you’re learning about IPv6 for the first time, or need help catching up, <a href="http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/ipv6/basics/">here’s</a> a great place to start.  If you like to low-crawl through the weeds, check out the title <a href="http://www.amazon.com/IPv6-Enterprise-Networks-Networking-Technology/dp/1587142279"><em>IPv6 for Enterprise Networks</em></a> by Cisco Press. It’s an excellent reference whether you’re planning your IPv6 transition or configuring EIGRPv6.  This book was also used as a reference to write this blog, so if I’ve sparked your curiosity in learning more about IPv6 it’s a must-read.

<strong>IPv6 in the Data Center</strong>

Assuming you know a little about IPv6, let's explore a much over-looked area of IPv6 deployment – the data center.  Today’s virtualized data centers offer unique considerations to IPv6 deployment than that of a typical campus network. Let’s consider the following:

-          Virtualization of compute, network, and storage technologies

-          Operating systems and mission critical applications

-          Disaster recovery and high availability

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but these considerations definitely hit close to home to me, and if you use any of the technologies above, they should for you as well.

As many have learned and experienced, virtualization can increase business agility, lower costs, provide high availability and so much more. Platforms like Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) unify network, storage access, and server virtualization into a complete, easy to manage system.  Paired with a virtualization suite like VMware vSphere 5, managing thousands of Virtual Machines (VMs) from a centralized point of management becomes trivial.  This ease in administration does come at the cost of complexity when deciding how to support IPv6 all the way from your service provider down to your most critical application on a VM.

Whether that application is on a UCS, being hosted in the Cloud, or on a physical server, you still have to manage and secure your data, and you’ll need to ensure your DR plan can execute over IPv6 to that site you’ve never been to in the middle of a cornfield in Nebraska.  Luckily, Cisco UCS and VMware vSphere 5 are both IPv6 ready, as are most recent operating systems and applications.

<strong>Planning the Transition</strong>

Leading the way, several governments have already started the transition to IPv6 through government directives.  For example, the United States, Australia, India, and Korea all have directives in action to transition to IPv6 by 2014.

Make no mistake - deploying IPv6 for your enterprise will not be completed overnight. IPv4 will still probably be used for the next couple of decades with a slow, incremental transition to IPv6.  Each enterprise will have to decide when to transition based on their own business incentives, customer locations, and infrastructure costs.  There are a few requirements applicable to almost everyone.  The transition to IPv6 must…

-          Not impact existing services

-          Co-exist with IPv4 infrastructure

-          Be low in cost

-          Be transparent to the end user

There are plenty of options when it comes to deciding how you’ll transition and each data center has it’s own challenges and considerations.  Stay educated, plan for the future, and trust that the day will come when more of your customers are using IPv6 than IPv4. That day won’t be today or tomorrow, but it will come eventually.  Whether or not your infrastructure is prepared to service and support those customers in the future will depend on the choices you make today.

<strong>Conclusion</strong>

Not ready for IPv6? Don’t worry - there’s no need to panic or sell the farm.  As mentioned before, the adoption of IPv6 has been slow thus far so you definitely have some time to plan.  As it stands, we’re caught in a bit of a Catch-22.  Vendors don’t want to go “all-in” because of the lack of business incentive for implementing IPv6, and customers and companies who want to adopt native IPv6 aren’t able to without end-to-end support from vendors and providers.  Hopefully events like World IPv6 Day will help increase the necessary awareness and visibility to ensure a smooth transition for everyone.