Interesting parallels can be drawn between the drive to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and efforts to confront the global warming crisis. Hopefully, the updated Internet addressing plan, which the technical community has pushed with mixed results for a decade, will gain traction in the same way that the green movement has during the past couple of years.

IPv6 is the next-generation addressing system that experts see as a necessary step as the number of available addresses in the current standard, IPv4, dwindles. Experts predict dire consequences if action is not taken -- just as scientists fear for our future if carbon emissions are not cut.

Delays and benign neglect are challenges in both cases. While the ramifications of inaction on IPv6 aren’t as bad (i.e., it won’t result in the end of the world), not confronting the address shortage could lead to a fragmentation of the Internet. For the first time, router tables would be incomplete. In some cases, devices’ response to a request will be the electronic equivalent of “you can’t get there from here.” While falling well short of extinction, an incomplete Internet would have significant social and financial ramifications.

The final parallel to the ongoing efforts to save our bacon before it starts sizzling is the fact that the green movement, despite the fact that its goals are unquestionably in society’s best interests, only took off after a cogent business rationale for it was established. Simply doing it to save the planet wasn’t quite good enough. To an extent, the same thing is happening in the IPv6 sector.

Experts are not only suggesting that deploying IPv6 is the right thing to do as corporate "netizens," but that those who do so will benefit financially. The idea is that organizations that want to expand current operations or start new projects simply won’t be able to do so if there are not enough addresses. Those that embrace the change, however, will have access to an essentially endless supply of inexpensive Internet addresses.

Time is growing short, however. The transition from “v4” to “v6” is complex. It covers devices at the core of the Internet as well as the networked office printer. It involves deep cooperation, expert planning and organized execution. It also requires finagling with devices with unique configurations whose documentation is lost and whose developers are long gone.

The move can’t be accomplished overnight. “The engineers of the Internet have been telling people that this is coming for a long time,” says Scott Hogg, the director of Advanced Technology Services for GTRI and chairman of the Rocky Mountain IPv6 Task Force. “Five years ago, there was a five-year warning. Three years ago, there was a three-year warning. This is the two-year warning.”

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