The IPv6 Observatory publishes reports every 3 months on various topics related to the deployment of IPv6.
Report #1: measuring IPv6 penetration in websites
Date of publication: June 4, 2012
A frequent measure of IPv6 penetration is done by checking in a list of web sites which have an AAAA (quad A) record in their DNS. In comparison with the A record which provides the IPv4 address, the AAAA record provides the IPv6 address. Having a AAAA record is thus one of the prerequisite to be able to reach a web server over IPv6. This first report shows IPv6 penetration in websites and describes the methodology used.
Report #2: IPv6 Security Architectures
Date of publication: September 29, 2012
This security technology paper focuses on the fundamental security deployment issues for IPv6-enabled networks. It is not meant to define a definitive security policy for any particular environment but rather it is an attempt to enumerate all of the considerations to be accounted for when creating an appropriate security policy and architecting the IPv6 network to incorporate appropriate security measures. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with basic IPv6 operation and has a fundamental understanding of network security issues.
Report #3: IPv6@GOV workshop report
Date of publication: March 25, 2013
A workshop gathering more than 40 participants from government, academic, industry and public bodies took place on January 23-24 2013 to review the current situation for IPv6 deployment in EU member states. While figures show a tripling in availability of websites over IPv6, real usage still remains negligible in comparison with IPv6 and prompted by US companies. To compensate for the late IPv6 adoption, some ISPs are deploying large-scale NATs (also called Carrier Grade NAT (CGN)). Deployment initiatives at national and regional level reveal the need for careful planning and set-up of national IPv6 deployment roadmaps in addition to the lack of full IPv6 support for some technologies. Exchange of best practices, monitoring of the deployment, benchmarking of initiatives and increase of IPv6 engineering skills of the work force are still appraised by the present expert community.
Report #4: visibility of IPv6 commercial offerings
Date of publication: April 23, 2013
This report presents the findings of a benchmark of the visibility of IPv6 commercial offerings. The goal of the benchmark was to evaluate the presence and quality of IPv6 commercial offering to the general public in selected European countries. The methodology concentrated on an evaluation of publicly available information to better represent the scope of the actual deployment beyond limited pilots and the associated efforts of the ISP for providing end user technical support and a clear schedule of their deployment. The report concludes that the actual commercial deployment seems to be slowly debuting but is for now still limited.
Public report #5: IPv6 gaining momentum
Date of publication: December 10, 2013
Last July (2013), 78% of all respondents to the 2013 Global IPv6 Deployment Monitoring Survey indicated to have an IPv6 presence. Only 8% of all respondents indicated still not to consider IPv6, with reasons ranging from those who feel they have plenty of IPv4 addresses available to cover their needs for the coming years, to some ISPs who have adopted a strategy of obtaining (buying) more IPv4 addresses when needed in order to serve their clients.
Public report #6: trends and perspectives workshop report
Date of publication: December 19, 2013
The IPv6 Observatory organized its second public workshop during the RIPE #67 meeting which took place in Athens from 14-18 October 2013. More than 30 participants from the network services area (ISPs, RIRs, LIRs, network industry) attended the workshop which presented the current situation and trends regarding deployment of IPv6. Observations made show deployment of IPv6 is still increasing but with overall low numbers, in the range of few percent when comparing to IPv4 situation. Figure 1 : workshop poster An observed trend is the increasing interest for alternative technologies such as large scale Network Address Translation (NAT) which allows to address a broader customer basis by allocating private IP addresses to the end users, at the expense of reduction of final user quality of experience.
Public report #7: IPv4 Exhaustion and IPv6 Development in APNIC region
Date of publication: January 6, 2014
This report first introduces the situation of IPv4 exhaustion in APNIC area, the policy and impact on both commercial and technical aspects. Then, it presents the IPv6 development in APNIC region and finally covers the government’s role in IPv6 deployment.