The Internet has run out of IPv4 addresses and the new version of the Internet Protocol ‘IPv6’ is the answer for the future growth of the Internet. IPv6 increases the number of available addresses and provides the possibility for all devices to take advantage of a protocol that can provide for secure end to end connectivity.

World IPv6 Launch was on June 6, 2012 where all major websites and Internet Service Providers permanently enabled IPv6 and the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 had begun. The take up initially was quite slow but now there are many organisations that have taken on implementing IPv6.

In Athlone Institute of Technology we began our IPv6 project to become familiar with IPv6 and to try ease our way into this new protocol that we knew very little about at the time. We began our journey by introducing IPv6 to our wireless network. During our presentation we will take you through how we approached implementing IPv6 including how we created our IPv6 addressing plan, some of the obstacles we faced along the way and where we are now with our IPv6 implementation.

One of the most critical factors is getting buy in from local technical and management staff to adopt IPv6 and the IPv6 project plan. We will go through how we worked around these issues. We will outline experiences with our cloud service partners HEAnet, Microsoft and their support for IPv6, our experiences with Hardware and Software support for ipv6 and with the setting up of our DNS to support IPv6.

We hope to provide some insight into what is involved in implementing IPv6 and why IPv6 may just be worthwhile considering.