* Extreme demonstrates IPv6 support, but demand seems soft
Despite lackluster demand, IPv6 support continues to slowly creep into network equipment. Just last week, Extreme Networks said it had successfully demonstrated IPv6 functionality in its BlackDiamond and Summit switches.
The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory tested the switches using the Moonv6 network, billed as the world’s largest multivendor IPv6 network. Layer 3 routing of IPv6 traffic was demonstrated.
The testing focused on transition technologies between IPv6 and the current IPv4 – for instance, the IPv6 DNS service was tunneled over an IPv4 network. The switches also filtered traffic using IPv6 access control lists.
Meanwhile, Network World recently has been looking at the issue of IPv6. Will enterprise users ever need it? My colleague Carolyn Duffy Marsan wrote in the Service Provider News Report that even an organization that has chosen to implement IPv6 (the Social Security Administration) is hard pressed to come up with a benefit of the technology. (On the flip side, the organization was able to provide her with some tips on implementation if readers care to see it.)
And then Kevin Tolly, whose product tests I sometimes highlight in this newsletter, recently said he doesn’t see a need for IPv6 anytime soon.
The thing is, people have been saying that there’s no need for IPv6 for years. But it’s coming. For years. Are we all setting ourselves up for a great disaster when we suddenly need IPv6 and we don’t have it yet? Or will it continue to be something that’s “in the future” forever, and never actually get to the present?
