Exponential-e, which is taking part in World IPv6 Day, is meeting the Internet addressing challenge head-on by ensuring its network is equipped for both IPv4 and IPv6 schemes.
World IPv6 Day, being hosted by The Internet Society (ISOC) on June 8, is a 24-hour trial period where a number of content providers, including brands such as Facebook and Google, will be providing content from sites based on both IPv4 and IPv6 addressing. The event's main goal is to encourage organisations across the industry to prepare their services for IPv6 to ensure successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out.
Exponential-e, which showed a £1.9 million profit in 2010 on a £25 million turnover, builds its portfolio from a Layer-2 core network capable of supporting any protocol. The company has for some time been planning for IPv6 and has a range of services in place to ensure all its existing and future customers make the right moves.
The service provider's IPv6 enabled core has been successfully tested and is now being trialled with customers. Exponential-e is supporting the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) 'end to end' principle by deploying IPv4 and IPv6 in parallel - an approach known as 'dual stack' - throughout its network.
The company, listed as one of the UK's fastest growing technology companies in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 league table every year between 2007 and 2010, has been awarded 4 stars of IPv6 readiness by RIPE NCC (the European Regional Internet Registry). This means - out of 6748 European service providers - it is among the top eight per cent that are actually ready to connect their customers to the whole Internet when IPv4 runs out.
Mukesh Bavisi, Managing Director of Exponential-e, said: "We are rolling out a dual-stack approach across the network as we believe this is the only way of delivering the high level of performance, user experience and reliability our customers expect. Dual IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity will become a standard feature of all Exponential-e business Internet services this autumn.
"The UK is expected to run out of IPv4 addresses by the end of this year and from this point all companies requiring an IP address will be given one based on IPv6. The problem that organisations face is that there is no migration path between the two and some experts believe that there will be a partitioning of the Internet with services based in separate silos. This represents a threat to any business with an online presence that needs all their customers to be able to find them. It will be particularly pertinent for e-commerce organisations or businesses that provide cloud services.
"While we will take steps to ensure that our own supply of IPv4 addresses lasts as long as possible, eventually, like everyone else, we will run out. We are intending however, with careful planning, to be assigning IPv4 space for as long as possible."
From this point Exponential-e will issue new customers with IPv6 addresses. The company is testing a number of options for transitional technology, including Carrier Grade NAT, which will allow it to maintain connectivity to the IPv4-only Internet for new customers.
Bavisi added: "The Internet economy is worth £100bn in the UK alone. While the switch to IPv6 poses challenges, there are also great opportunities for those that adopt it in good time in terms of providing a competitive boost in sales, perception and potential improved technical performance."