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AWS, Microsoft Embrace IPv6 for Their Clouds
To meet the requirements of modern software -- and because of the increasingly limited availability of IPv4 addresses -- Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) and Microsoft have each brought native IPv6 connectivity to their respective cloud services.
AWS first added IPv6 to its S3 storage offering back in August, though it did not extend to Web site hosting, access via BitTorrent or transfer acceleration. Last week, however, AWS extended its IPv6 support to its other services, including transfer acceleration in S3.
The support extension also includes AWS' CloudFront content delivery network (CDN) at all of its 60-plus edge locations and Web application firewall (WAF) service. AWS Cloud Evangelist Jeff Barr explained how to implement the respective APIs in a blog post.
AWS rival Microsoft also announced support for native IPv6 addresses in its Azure cloud during its Ignite conference last month.
In a blog post, Yousef Khalidi, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Azure networking, noted that Microsoft has used IPv6 for Microsoft services for more than three years. The new native connectivity in Azure is available for connectivity to both Windows and Linux virtual machines.
Microsoft also outlined how to connect IPv6 network endpoints to the Azure Load Balancer either by using a template, using PowerShell or using Azure Resource Manager with the Azure CLI.
Azure's IPv6 connectivity is currently available in most regions, excluding parts of Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, China and the U.S. government cloud. Current availability is posted here.
Internet service and cloud providers have been under pressure for years to upgrade their networks to support IPv6. Fueling demand are compliance requirements and a proliferation of new Internet-connected devices.
"The demand for IPv6 has never been greater with the explosive growth in mobile devices and billions of Internet of Things (IoT) devices entering the market," wrote Khalidi.
About the Author
Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.