Experiences Early IPv6 Adoption
www.internet2.edu/ipv6
Techniques used to cope with the shortage of
IPv4 addresses, such as temporarily address
assignment and network address translation,
are reaching their limits and are barriers to the
further growth of the Internet.
The Solution
The future of the Internet lies in Internet Protocol
version 6 (IPv6), with its ability to use 128-bit
addresses instead of the 32-bit addressing
of IPv4. This vastly increases the number of
addresses available from about 4 billion to
approximately 340 trillion trillion trillion.
While many universities are beginning to
experiment with IPv6 deployment, the Kansas
research and education network, KanREN
region– has become one of the first areas of the
country to see a rapid uptake in adoption among
many of its member institutions.
“By embracing the next generation Internet
Protocol now, [Kansas institutions] can better
leverage existing phased infrastructure upgrades
and software upgrades,” says Cort Buffington,
executive director of KanREN. “Also, as
educational institutions, it is in their interest
to start exposing their students to the new
technology now.”
KanREN’s approach has been to provide
IPv6 transport within the network, which has
meant its own migration to IPv6, and to work
individually with interested members. “One
thing we emphasize is the phased migration
approach,” Buffington says. “We have to accept
that IPv6 is a different network layer protocol
than IPv4 and decouple ourselves from the IPv4
paradigm.”
The KanREN region has become one of the
first segments of the community to see a rapid
deployment of the new Internet Protocol, IPv6
with three of its member institutions making
aggressive commitments to migrating their
campuses to IPv6, and others are poised to
follow suit.
With the IP address space quickly depleting
under the current Internet Protocol (IPv4),
developing methods and timetables for
migration will become critically important to
higher education institutions, researc