Luckily, developers and scientists foresaw this problem and created a new version of Internet protocol called IPv6. This version supports a much larger address pool and includes other benefits as well.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Number Resource Organization’s American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), among others, have encouraged online communities to adopt IPv6 for some time. However, due to recent developments, they are aggressively urging people to make the switch.

Earlier this week, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated 2 /8s of IPv4 addresses to the Asia-Pacific Regional Internet Registry (APNIC), which is one of the five central registries like ARIN. This move left only 5 /8s of IPv4 address space. Based on a global policy, this remaining space is to be distributed evenly to each of the 5 Regional Internet Registries.

According to Richard Jimmerson, the CIO of ARIN, the final distribution to the RIRs took place today, which means that the IANA free pool of IPv4 address is depleted. He told WebProNews that the free pools that RIRs now have could last anywhere from days to months, depending on the demand for each region.

“In the case of ARIN, it’s possible we could receive enough request traffic, if justified in the coming weeks, to fully deplete our resource… but by the end of this year in 2011, we do expect to be turning down requests for additional IPv4 address space,” he said.

Once this news broke, the Internet has been buzzing with so-called “IPocalypse” scenarios. While there are some very real challenges that lie ahead, ARIN and other non-profit entities are strongly urging content providers and Internet Service Providers to transition to IPv6. Because all the content on the Internet is on IPv4, companies will need to continue to support it as they make the transition.

If companies do not adopt IPv6, they could be forced to share with others, meaning that they would not have their own unique identifying numbers. As a result, applications would not be able to distinguish users and interoperability issues could occur that might reduce network performance.

“Companies will have to deploy IPv6 going forward. That is where the growth on the Internet is,” said Jimmerson.

In an effort to test IPv6, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and several other organizations are coming together for World IPv6 Day on June 8. This test will give companies the opportunity to get comfortable with IPv6. In addition, it will help them identify any potential problems that they could prepare for.

If you would like to participate in World IPv6 Day, visit Internet Society.