IPv6: Do you need it?

 A few years ago, the world was running out of IP addresses and the sky was falling. IPv6, with its huge address space, was looking like the solution. Then more and more organizations started using private IP addressing, and the pressure seemed to ease off.

The Longhorn technologies (Vista and Server 2008) have IPv6 installed and active "out of the box," which some say is a good thing because eventually most organizations will make the changeover and when they do, all the operating system support is present. IPv6 offers other benefits besides lots of addresses: more efficient routing and potentially easier client IP configuration, to name two.

Even if you haven't formally begun the transition to IPv6, your network may need to support it if you're running failover clustering on Server 2008, or if you're running Microsoft's "Meeting Space" application, a Vista-only peer-to-peer sharing tool that lets you share your desktop, or a single application, with other users over a wired or wireless link. While still a bit rough around the edges, this tool can be a handy way of conducting an ad-hoc meeting or doing a demo in a coffee shop, airport, or other off-network location. It also has a humorous bug that results in an "infinite loop" display corruption if you share your desktop and view what you're sharing. (Think facing mirrors, such as in an elevator.)

Microsoft reports in its Step-By-Step Guide on Meeting Space that the app won't work across subnets unless you have IPv6 turned on. That seems to imply that it will work within the same subnet even if you have IPv6 turned off... which contradicts other statements by other Microsoft employees who state unequivocally that if IPv6 is off, Meeting Space breaks. So until I get a few minutes to try this out on my own network, if any of you have done this experiment, let us know.

Update to Virtual Server 2005

Evaluating Server 2008

Server Core Pricing Controversy