HP: Enterprise driving European take-up of IPv6

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Hardware giant HP has hailed the work of enterprise firms in driving adoption of IPv6 across Europe.

Speaking to IT Pro, Darren Parkes, networking consulting strategy lead at HP, said the European appetite for IPv6 is growing, albeit slowly in the UK.

The Chinese are already building IPv6 ready components and cars.

"I'm seeing a huge shift in mainland Europe. They really want to embrace it," Parkes told IT Pro. "In the UK, we are a little more risk adverse and we tend to worry about these things when they hit our shores."

The use of IPv6 networks has been gradually rising in recent years as the number of IPv4 addresses has dwindled.

This shift has been gaining momentum since the beginning of the year, when the Internet Society confirmed 6 June as World IPv6 Launch Day.

The manufacturing industry has been one of the protocol's fastest adopters, as the demand for IPv6 enabled devices has grown, claimed Parkes.

"The Chinese are already building cars and components that are IPv6 ready. If European manufacturers don't follow suit they know, once the world wakes up, they're going to be left behind and the Chinese car makers are going to take market share," explained Parkes.

The switch to IPv6 could also create application compatibility issues, which could also leave firms on the back foot, he warned.

"How are firms going to feel if SAP or Oracle develop a new module in their product suites that gives you lots of extra functionality, but you can only use it if it you have v6? They need to ask themselves, would that be a major limitation?"

Caroline Donnelly is the news and analysis editor of IT Pro and its sister site Cloud Pro, and covers general news, as well as the storage, security, public sector, cloud and Microsoft beats. Caroline has been a member of the IT Pro/Cloud Pro team since March 2012, and has previously worked as a reporter at several B2B publications, including UK channel magazine CRN, and as features writer for local weekly newspaper, The Slough and Windsor Observer. She studied Medical Biochemistry at the University of Leicester and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism at PMA Training in 2006.