In case you missed the news, the North American well has finally run dry on IP (IPv4 – 32 bit) addresses. What’s been happening for the past few years in Asia, Europe, and Latin America – i.e., the rationing of addresses that make sure that smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, servers, and any piece of equipment with a computer on board has a unique identifier for communicating with the Internet – is now hitting closer to home. As of a few weeks ago, ARIN (the American Registry for Internet Numbers) started scrimping on numbers, offering smaller blocks at a time.
When IPv4 was introduced, it seemed like those 4.3 billion possibilities would last a good long time. But that was then, and this is now. Last fall, Gartner predicted that, in 2015, the number of connected devices comprising the Internet of Things would hit 5 billion. By 2020, forecasts range from 20 billion, to 50 billion, to 200 billion. (To infinity and beyond!)
In case you’re wondering why we haven’t run out of addresses already, many have already made the switch to IPv6 (128 bit addressing). Google, for one, did so in 2012.
Critical Link has also made the leap. All of our Linux-based SoMs have IPv6 support available. This includes the MitySOM-5CSx, MitySOM-335x, and MityDSP-L138(F) families, as well as our new 5CSx-based MityCAM cameras.
And in case you’re wondering whether we’ll be running out of IPv6 addresses anytime soon, not to worry. There a 340 trillion, trillion, trillion unique combinations. Even if the wildest forecasts for IoT materialize, this should hold us for a while.
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If you’re interested in reading more on this topic, here are a couple of links to posts on this subject. (Some of the information used in my post was taken from these sources.)
“We’ve finally hit the breaking point for the original Internet” by Brian Fung, The Washington Post.
“I’ts official: North America out of new Ipv4 addresses” by Iljitsch van Beijnum, on Ars Technica.
And a shout out to Critical Link’s Mike Williamson, who spotted this for us.