Microsoft scraps plans to go IPv6 only on its internal network

Microsoft has scrapped its plan to go IPv6 only on its network as it will block VPNs as well. The company stated that IPv6 only networks will block VPNs which would be a problem for its campus visitors.

The decision was taken after Microsoft experienced a similar issue where a team couldn’t connect to the VPN as the conference provided internet access as IPv6-only. Microsoft said that its visitors and clients will need VPN to securely access their own corporate networks and gateways and with IPv6-only networks, it won’t be possible.

Unfortunately, we had to stop this work because we came across something that the previous internal testing had not uncovered. A team member attended a conference where internet access was provided as IPv6-only and 99 per cent of attendees could not get their VPN clients to connect on this network.

Moreover, Microsoft stated that deployment of IPv6 is not under their control but the company is planning to keep both IPv4 and IPv6 on their networks.

Deployment of IPv6 by other companies is out of our control and therefore this network is currently undergoing a less radical makeover to dual stack. IPv6-only is on-hold for production even though we intend to pilot it to assess the real impact on Microsoft visitors.

Microsoft, however, hasn’t removed the idea from the table completely but is working on a way to make VPNs work on IPv6 networks.

We also tried to test IPv6-only Client pool, which means no IPv4 inside the VPN tunnel. We found out that the VPN vendor did not support IPv6-only client profile at the time and we are waiting for a new VPN gateway code version to be released in the next six months.

It might be a while before Microsoft finally rolls out IPv6 only networks but for now, at least its visitors will have access to the network without breaking the VPNs.

Via: The Register