Microsoft just ran out of IPv4 addresses

We’ve been hearing about IPv6 for quite a while now; how it will solve all of our problems as more and more devices come online. But when Microsoft flat-out says they’ve run out of IPv4 addresses to give, well, things get more serious.

We’ve known about how IPv4 has reached its limits for quite a while. The devices that connect to the internet are multiplying, so are new people who connect to the wonderful world of the world-wide web. IPv6 promises to solve that problem for many years to come, but the route towards adapting to the new standard has been slow. Well, as PCWorld explains with their article, that moment should come sooner, rather than later, especially when Microsoft itself is facing challenges like running out of IPv4 addresses to give:

Microsoft has been forced to start using its global stock of IPv4 addresses to keep its Azure cloud service afloat in the U.S., highlighting the growing importance of making the shift to IP version 6.

Microsoft doesn’t mention IPv6 in the blog post, but the use of the protocol would make its address problems disappear. The newer version of the Internet Protocol adds an almost inexhaustible number of addresses thanks to a 128-bit long address field, compared to the 32 bits used by version 4. Since every connected device on the Internet needs an IP address, there will be increasing pressure to move to IPv6 as more non-computer devices come online in the so-called Internet of things.

The IPv4 address space has been fully assigned in the U.S., meaning there are no additional addresses available, Microsoft said in a blog post earlier this week. This requires the company to use the IPv4 address space available to it globally for new services, it said.

Read the rest of the interesting article here.