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IPv6
IPv6
11:04 AM EST 11/11/05
Hi all!
This is a question I received and I'm not sure what the answer is -- what do you think? I have heard that larger research institutions are using IPv6, but where is this on the radar of smaller libraries?

"IPv6 also known as IP next generation or IPng is slated to replace the current IP protocol, IPv4. Some application, operating systems and servers already provide support for IPv6. I am wondering if anyone working in the library environment can share what the library is doing to prepare for the switch.

My understanding is that some hardware needs to be replaced, especialy the older generation of routers. How about the changing of addressing scheme? Does anyone know of any library having a plan in place?"

Thank you!
Brenda
Re: IPv6
11:57 AM EST 11/11/05 as a reply to Brenda Hough.
This is a very timely topic - the federal government has set June 2008 as the deadline for federal agencies to make the IPv4 to IPv6 transition, so it looks like IPv6 is really starting to get some momentum after being quiet for so many years.

Some older network hardware is definitely going to have to be replaced, although since IPv6 support relies more on software than on hardware, an upgrade to the router software should be able to manage the trick in some cases. The following website is a good resource for tackling that question:

http://www.join.uni-muenster.de/Implementationen/Router.php?lang=en

I'm not aware of any libraries that have made the IPv6 switch, since it's really premature to do that quite yet. But hopefully the federal government's push will create the momentum to get vendors and ISPs really moving on this soon.
Re: IPv6
5:07 PM EST 11/22/05 as a reply to Jeff Hall.
Here's a response I got from one network admin....
"IPv6 certainly is on the horizon, but its still a ways off. {{Network provider}}
already has a block of IPv6 addresses and can hand sub-networks of them out
to those sites that are interested and have the ability to handle them.

Currently our router doesn't have the necessary software on it to
route IPv6 packets, this is something that will be addressed, but not in the
immediate future. IPv6 still has some maturing to do, many programs out
currently don't fully understand IPv6, and services such as DNS and DHCP have
yet to be resolved for IPv6. DNS will be critical as an IPv6 address is a
huge hexadecimal number that would be impossible to remember."

Sounds like this is going to be a big shift for us!