How IPv6 can reduce your management costs and increase network speed

Do you know how many tricks you use to keep your network alive? Most likely more than you need. At least, if you're still relying on IPv4, your costs are likely much too high. Most organizations, regrettably, are still tethered to IPv4. Which requires tricks, with names like SD-WAN, NAT, PAT, and VPN, which are expensive and hold up your network traffic and thus your employees.

The Evolution of IP Addresses

A significant turning point occurred in 2011 when Asia exhausted its pool of IPv4 addresses, followed by Europe in 2018. This scarcity led to a whole host of creative solutions. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) might not be too keen on migrating you to IPv6. The reason? IPv4 addresses serve as a lucrative business model, whereas IPv6 is free. Several ISPs have hoarded address spaces, partly by buying up smaller parties, and are now leveraging their position. Sadly, as a customer, you pay their price.

VPN: From Many Lanes to Bottlenecks

Many connections between branches and between a branch and your cloud provider run through a Virtual Private Network (VPN). However, a VPN is a so-called serialization point. How that works? If you're driving on a five-lane highway and it suddenly becomes one lane because there's been an accident, you're suddenly driving very slowly. Those few kilometers often take more time than the rest of your journey. 

The same thing happens on a VPN, but 24/7, even if there are no accidents. All traffic that drives next to each other within the branch and within the cloud must use a single lane on the VPN, leading to sluggish data transfer. Often a VPN receives an enticing name like ExpressRoute, however such a name suggests speed which is misleading.

Managing complexity is expensive

Let's not forget the management costs. Keeping these techniques operational and efficiently managed demands significant efforts from your workforce or Managed Service Provider (MSP)/ISP.

What about SD-WAN as a possible alternative? SD-WAN is an umbrella term for many different techniques – it's essentially a marketing buzzword. For instance, Cisco's SD-WAN (purely as an example) differs significantly from, say, KPN's (also as an example) version. After transitioning to IPv6, expensive SD-WANs can be reduced or made redundant.

No more shortages with IPv6

Back in 1998, IPv6 was invented, boasting an impressive number of addresses. The sheer abundance is mind-boggling – you could allocate a unique address to every single atom in the universe. There is no shortage of that for the time being, even if we start populating other planets. Thereby, eradicating the need for costly techniques and tricks. IPv6 flourishes where IPv4 struggles to survive.

With IPv6 you no longer need a VPN. Branches can talk directly to each other and to the cloud. Of course, stringent firewalls remain essential, as well as data encryption – but you've got that covered, right? Transitioning to IPv6 in 2018 significantly slashed our network management expenses. The overall complexity decreased, and network latency was down to 40 percent of what it was on IPv4.

Think about it

Naturally, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. The shift from IPv4 to IPv6 isn't an overnight endeavor. It necessitates meticulous planning and a solid grasp of the process. A transitional phase, where both protocols run in parallel, is unavoidable. However, procrastination only leads to further complications. While IPv4 might not be extinct, it's undoubtedly on life support. Therefore, I urge you to at least think about the switch.