Mark Minasi posted on Facebook last night that the very last IPv4 address blocks were distributed to regional IP managers. That’s it; the last of the IPv4 addresses are now in the control of your local IP managers.
Now is the time to run to the supermarket, stock up on water and canned foods, get as much petrol/diesel as you can, and attend that crash-course survivalist training camp!!!!!!
Oh hold on a sec; Any decent ISP will have a certain allocation to keep them going for a while. Your internal network is probably NAT’d so you’ve no internal IP issues there. But where we do have an issue is IPv6. I can only speak for Ireland but I’m guessing (other than China) most of us are totally unprepared for IPv6. ISPs have not even started work on it – I’m told by those in the know that they have not taken the problem seriously. And many network admins (including us server admins) don’t understand IPv6. It is quite different. It has different terminology and it works very differently. For example, asking an end user to ping an IPv6 address will be … different.
My advice is, if you do have an external presence, do your best to stock up on IPv4 addresses now to meet short and medium term requirements. They may not be there later on, and your local ISPs may not have the alternative IPv6 deployed. Make sure your network appliances are IPv6 ready. Start learning. And put pressure on your ISP.
The ISP for the company I work for is British Telecom. When we asked for an IPv6 /64 we got a confused reply, apparently even BT aren’t ready to dish out IPv6… sheesh.
Holey crap! Keep very hush about them anyway so you don’t get accused of hoarding IPv4 addresses. Better go get some extra ammo was well. You never know your competitors will comen & raid your litlle IPv4 address stockpile 😉