How long will it take to completely get rid of IPv4 or will it happen at all?

Saku Ytti saku at ytti.fi
Sat Jun 27 16:47:35 UTC 2015


On (2015-06-27 07:38 -0700), Bob Evans wrote:

Hey Bob,

> What will come first ?
> A) the earths future core rotation changes altering the ionosphere in such
> a way that we are all exposed to continuous x-rays that shorten our
> lifespan

As a firm believer of sustainable development I furiously believe that once
this solar system becomes uninhabitable we've takenflora and fauna in galactic
Noah's Ark to next useful system. Any development prohibiting this outcome is
clearly less sustainable.
Having said that, both IPv4 and IPv6 will be obsolete before heath death of
universe, but I believe IPv4 will out-live IPv6 much like 2G GSM will outlive
3G, due to various legacy applications. None of this will matter much to us,
as it'll be deep in the edge taken care by integrators not operators.

> B) the last IPv4 computer running will be reconfigured to IPv6

Never. The cost of doing so in some environments will eclipse cost of
translating at the edge, for same reason there are IPX, X.25, FrameRelay, ATM,
CLNS networks for decades to come.
All or nothing proposals are rarely data-driven decisions, but tend to be
sentimental decisions 'x is old, thus it must be gone'

-- 
  ++ytti



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