IPv6 is the Future of the Internet!

The future of the Internet depends on the continued growth of a solid and healthy underlying global network infrastructure supporting the demand for the next generation of the Internet using IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) as its communication protocol.

In the era of Internet of Things (IoT), without the extensive global adoption and successful deployment of IPv6 as the primary version of the Internet Protocol (IP), if not the only version of IP completely replacing IPv4, not only the future deployment and growth of IoT is impossible, but the future of the Internet itself is at stake. 

Here are the five (5) reasons why:

1. IoT needs more IP addresses than IPv4 can provide.
2. Cloud Computing also needs more IP addresses.
3. Adopting IPv6 only policy will dramatically reduce the cyber security threats and attacks.
4. IPv4 is only a beta version of the Internet.
5. It is a matter of leadership, vision, and competitive edge.

In summary, the future growth and successful deployment of IoT cannot be achieved without the successful global adoption and deployment of IPv6, without which, there is no future of the Internet of Things.

IPv6 is not only the future of IoT, but also the future of the Internet!

#IPv6, #IoT, #Internet, #IPv4, #SDN, #CloudComputing, #Cybersecurity

IPv6 Matters!

Earlier today, I made a comment on an article posted by one of my colleagues on LinkedIn regarding connections matters... My comment was:

IPv6 matters too!

Without the underlying networking infrastructure to support the Internet of Things, the IoT will never be capitalized as expected. Without the global adoption of IPv6, the required networking infrastructure to support the next generation of the Internet will never be possible.

In short, there will be no IoT without IPv6; and without IPv6, there is no future of the Internet!

Thus, IPv6 really matters, whether we like it or not!!

Disclaimer: The views presented are only personal opinions and they do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government.

In Good Company!

The following was posted earlier on LinkedIn as a thank-you note to all of my friends, colleagues and supporters for casting their vote for me for the FedScoop 2015 Digital Innovation Award. It was also intended as a consolation for my fellow nominees for this award:

Earlier today, I attended the FedScoop 2015 Digital Innovation Summit among many participants from both the public and private sectors in the overcrowded Knight Studio of the Newseum at the nation’s capital. It was a great event despite the oversold theater seats …  ;-)  

Congratulations to my fellow nominee Deborah Diaz, CTO from NASA, as the winner of this year’s Digital Innovation Award! Also, my kudos to all other fellow nominees for this year’s award! I am very proud to be in company with a great crowd of many of the most innovative men and women in the public and private sectors.

Naturally it was a great honor for me to be nominated for this year’s award.  I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude and heartfelt appreciations to all of my colleagues, friends, and supporters at both sides of the Atlantic for your strong support and your time to cast your vote for me for this year’s digital innovation award! Your genuine kindness, friendship, and support for me and for a strong voice for IPv6 is invaluable beyond words!

Later this afternoon, a wise man at work (who is actually my boss' boss) told me half-jokingly, that I am actually in good company with many famous men and women as the nominees who have not yet won the award, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Glenn Close… Obviously, he was talking about the Academy Award! For me, that would be another life to be in that category... LOL

Nonetheless, this kindly joke can be used as a consolation, which I would like to share with the rest of my fellow nominees who have not yet won the award:

Cheers, you are in good company!  LOL

Your Vote For A Strong Voice For IPv6 And For The Future Of The Internet!

Your Vote For A Strong Voice For IPv6 And For The Future Of The Internet!

Earlier today I was informed by FedScoop that I have been nominated for the 2015 Digital Innovation Award. The winner of the award will be announced at the 2015 Digital Innovation Summit on October 14, 2015 at the event to be held at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

I am extremely honored to have been nominated by my peers for this award. Even though I am not running for the office in this election season, but I will need your vote for a strong voice for IPv6 and for the future of the Internet!  LOL

Here is the link to all of the nominees of 2015 Digital Innovation Award: http://fedscoop.com/events/digital-innovation-summit/awards/

IPv6, It Is Not That Complicated After All!

In the final analysis, to enable IPv6 is only a configuration change to the existing networking infrastructure!

Notwithstanding the seemly lengthy and complicated format of IPv6 address, which is represented as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits, each group representing 16 bits (such as 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334), whereas the IPv4 address uses a dotted-decimal format, where each byte ranges from 0 to 255 (such as 10.1.1.1), to configure and enable IPv6 in the networking infrastructure is NOT that complicated.

From the network engineers’ perspective, to deploy IPv6 is no more complicated than to introduce a new OSPF routing instance or to establish a new BGP session in your current production network environment. At the end of the day, to enable a separate IPv6 stack in parallel with the existing IPv4 stack in a so-called dual stack configuration in the current networking infrastructure is simply a configuration change by adding only a few command lines to the network devices and hosts (such as routers, L3 switches, firewalls, servers, etc.), similar to what you would normally do to enable a new OSPF routing protocol or  to establish a BGP session with your peers for the network devices, provided that the current network devices and systems in your organization are fairly up to date. If that is not the case, then your network infrastructure will potentially have more than just a problem to support the IPv6 in a dual-stack mode of operation with IPv4 and IPv6.

Consequently, it is very misleading and disingenuous for someone engaged in the practice of adopting the IPv6 to constantly keep mixing up a simple technical matter with complicated and unnecessary political debates and even geopolitical politics in both the global forum and some of the relevant international conferences.

As Vint Cerf, one of "the fathers of the Internet" and the co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, once said, the IPv4 that we are using today is only “the experimental version of the Internet” and it was somehow leaked out to the rest of the world from his original experiment. He called the IPv6 as “the production version of the Internet” for the 21st century.

If that is the case, why does anyone still want to keep running a beta version of software in the production environment?! Why can’t we just perform a simple configuration change in our current networking infrastructure to upgrade the beta version of the IP code to the real production version of the Internet so that we will be able to continue to support the future growth and development of the new Internet?!!

Disclaimer: The views presented are only personal opinions and they do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government

IPv6, To Lead, or To Be Lead?

From a holistic perspective, as far as IPv6 is concerned, it eventually comes down to this very simple question: To lead or to be lead?

Do we want to continue to lead the rest of the world in terms of supporting the future development and growth of the Internet and the related technological innovations in the era of IoT, or do we want to let the rest of the world to not only take over the discussions on the future governance of the Internet from the policy perspective, but also take the lead in adopting and deploying IPv6 so that they could gain more real world experience and technical knowhow in securely deploying and protecting the IPv6 networking infrastructure?

It might already be a foregone conclusion that we have lost the fight in the cyber warfare against the bad actors in the IPv4 stack, but we may still have a fighting chance to win the war in the IPv6 stack. This may be the only chance that we have in order to gain the upper hand to fight against the bad actors in the era of IoT and the next generation of the Internet, especially when considering the fact that we can immediately achieve more than 50% reduction of the cyber security threats and attacks the moment we can turn off the IPv4 stack completely from the current networking infrastructure.

I think the answer to the question is very simple: we MUST lead, in order to survive in the cyber warfare in the days to come.

Disclaimer: The views presented are only personal opinions and they do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government.