Arris Group has added support for data collection from IPv6 and "dual-stack" devices to its ServAssure Advanced Performance Management Software platform for DOCSIS networks.
ServAssure Advanced provides monitoring and performance tools to optimize the quality and capacity of DOCSIS networks. According to Arris, ServAssure currently is used to manage more than 80 million customer premises devices worldwide, accounting for more than 30% of all existing in-home broadband devices.
Internet service providers and their customers are facing a years-long migration to the IPv6 protocol, which provides a cosmically large number of unique address, roughly 2 to the 128th power, because the pool of 4.2 billion IPv4 addresses is expected to be depleted as early as later in 2011.
Responding to forecasts indicating that the central pool of IPv4 Internet addresses would be completely depleted in 2011, we began preparing for the move to IPv6," said Gary Cunha, Arris senior director of assurance solutions product line management. "We are now in the position to help our customers tackle today's IP address management and shortage issues."
The underlying IP protocols are essential to the functioning of the Internet, providing the mechanism for how data is routed among servers and clients. But IPv4 and IPv6 are fundamentally incompatible, which means there will be a long period of "dual-stack" operation as usage of IPv4 fades away and IPv6 increases.
