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IPv4 Address Allocation Exhausted, IPv6 Adoption Accelerates

SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- A10 Networks(TM), the technology leader in Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs), today announced that the IPv4 address pool is effectively exhausted according to industry accepted indicators (source: http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/). The final allocations under the existing framework are now allocated, which triggers the processes for IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) to assign the final five IPv4 /8 blocks, one to each of the five regional registries. With exhaustion of the IANA pool of IPv4 addresses, no further IPv4 addresses can be issued to the regional registries that provide addresses to organizations.

IPv4 address depletion is an important milestone that has been anticipated for more than a decade, and poses a real business threat for service providers. For example, service providers need to migrate users to IPv6 once there are no new IPv4 addresses to assign to new subscribers; however, there are overwhelming amounts of legacy IPv4 infrastructure, devices, services, applications and content. Service providers need high performance, practical and appropriate IPv4/IPv6 gateways for their networks. A10's AX Series provides comprehensive and scalable solutions to integrate IPv4 and IPv6 that are built on top of its 64-bit Advanced Core OS (ACOS).

To handle IPv6's larger address space and resources, and ensure forward and backward compatibility with legacy IPv4 systems, a high-performance IPv4/IPv6 gateway such as A10's scalable 64-bit AX Series is required. IPv6 introduces a longer numbering scheme for addresses and reduces performance due to the additional processing requirements versus IPv4, resulting in devices requiring more memory resources to hold and process data.

The advent of true 64-bit platforms, such as the AX Series, allows more addressable memory for the scalability and performance that IPv6 requires. A10's ACOS within all AX Series platforms was designed from inception for IPv6, ensuring performance is not lost through inefficient code or development shortcuts to address legacy design issues. Web properties and enterprises have started to implement IPv6. Recent AX Series deployment examples include a pure end-to-end IPv6 website and a hybrid deployment allowing IPv6 externally, while translating requests to existing IPv4 web servers.

The AX Series today features the most advanced technologies for IPv4 preservation, IPv4/IPv6 translation and full IPv6 migration. Many organizations believe that to solve the IPv4 exhaustion problem they need very expensive core routers, but A10 delivers a cost-effective, high-performance alternative with solutions such as Large Scale NAT (LSN, also known as Carrier Grade NAT - CGN), Dual-Stack Lite, NAT64, full native IPv6 support, IPv4/IPv6 server load balancing and translation and more.

"The IANA IPv4 depletion is an important milestone that shows justification for the ramp of activity we are seeing in the various IPv4 preservation and IPv6 migration technologies A10 offers. However, with addresses still available from regional authorities and service providers, the 'IPv4 pinch' may not be felt for some time," said Raj Jalan, CTO for A10 Networks. "The notion of IPv6 networks being the primary protocol over today's IPv4 networks is on the horizon. The day of IPv6 networks having to support legacy IPv4 networks is not a question of if, but when."

"The emerging IPv6 migration market has been a key focus area for A10 Networks since our inception. We believe that IPv4 and IPv6 will co-exist until at least 2020, requiring high-performance solutions to translate between the two protocols and aid in seamless protocol migration and preservation strategies," said Lee Chen, A10 Networks Founder and CEO. "The world's first carrier IPv6 deployments and also major IPv6 enabled web sites are now live and in production with our AX Series, and we look forward to helping more customers globally with efficient IPv4/IPv6 transitions."

To read A10's Whitepaper on IPv4/IPv6 migration strategies, please visit: http://www.a10networks.com/forms/register.WP-IPv4_IPv6.php

About A10 Networks

A10 Networks was founded in Q4 2004 with a mission to provide innovative networking and security solutions. A10 Networks makes high-performance products that help organizations accelerate, optimize and secure their applications. A10 Networks is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan. For more information, visit http://www.a10networks.com

SOURCE A10 Networks