NetEvents: Without IPv6 cloud projects will remain grounded

If you want to do cloud, you must be IPv6 compliant, argues InfoBlox VP

With the last blocks of IPv4 addresses already allocated, industry insiders warn that enterprises that have not yet moved to an IPv6 infrastructure will be unable to migrate to the cloud.

Speaking at the NetEvents conference in Barcelona yesterday, Steve Garrison, vice-president of marketing for network availability specialist Infoblox, said: "Although the migration to Ipv6 was necessary for service providers, many enterprise IT chiefs have postponed the move.

"Enterprises may not have needed to migrate to IPv6 as they can probably sustain their business on IPv4 for a while yet.

"However, this is not the case when companies begin considering migration to the cloud," he added.

"Cloud service providers will tend to be operating on IPv6 and if your enterprise is still running on IPv4 you are going to have significant problems sending data back and forward to the datacentre.

"If your enterprise wants to do cloud, then you simply have to be IPv6 compliant," he added.