We’re running out of IPv4 addresses: will the world really end in 2012?

It’s not the Mayan calendar – it’s the end of address space that could do us in.IPv4 addressing protocol (32 bits) allows for four billion IP addresses. You’d think that four billion of anything would be enough, but it isn’t. It's predicted that some time in the next year or two we’re going to run out of them.IPv6 (128 bits) allows for 3.4 times 10, 38 times. That’s actually 340.3 undecillion. It’s a lot. Every Internet user on earth could get an IP address for each of his teeth, his cat’s teeth and his toaster and it wouldn’t even put a dent in the possible range.Sean Michael Kerner, writing on the Enterprise Working Planet web site has done a feature “IPv4's Last Day: What Will Happen When There Is Only IPv6?” that foresees the American Registry for Internet Numbers (IRIN) and the other four regional Internet registry organizations doling out smaller blocks of addresses as fewer and fewer become available.Sunbelt Software Sales Engineer Phil Owens doesn’t foresee the end of anything, he foresees the beginning of a market for IPv4 addresses as enterprises sell off the address space they don’t need.So, the long-anticipated switch over to IPv6 will really happen NOT when ARIN runs out (continue reading...)