It’s been a while since I had heard anything about IPv6 in the press, so it came as a bit of a surprise when I found news of IPv6 adoption in Van Dyke Software’s 5th Annual Enterprise Security Study. Denise Dubie of Network World covered the study today detailing the security problems that can keep network managers awake at night.
While the majority of the study was about security, at the very bottom of the press release you’ll find the following paragraph on the move to IPv6.
IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) is the latest level of the Internet Protocol and is now included as part of IP support in many products including the major computer operating systems. About one-fifth (21%) of the survey respondents said that they have moved to IPv6 either in the past 12 months or more than 12 months ago; in 2007 only 10% had reported already moving to IPv6. Also, 26% in 2007 had planned to move to IPV6 in the next 12 months, compared with 36% in 2008.
It’s hard to say whether this is a sign of wider trend of IPv6 adoption in the coming year. I spoke with a few engineers about what they were seeing out in the field. The general consensus was that while it’s something that potential customers ask about, it’s not a sign that they’ll be implementing IPv6 on their network in the next year. IPv6 Adoption will take place, but I would be surprised if nearly half of organizations implemented it by the end of 2008 as the study seems to indicate.
