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Your IPv6 network. Portable. Registered. Yours.

RIPE NCC LIR · IPv6 PA

isp6 Knowledge Base

isp6 is a RIPE NCC accredited Local Internet Registry built for organisations that want to own and operate their IPv6 infrastructure, without the overhead of becoming an LIR themselves.

Every isp6 membership includes a portable /48 IPv6 PA allocation, and members can order additional /44 blocks at any time. Through our self-service portal, you complete identity verification and have your allocation registered in the RIPE Database within minutes. From there, your subnet dashboard gives you direct control over the resources that define your network identity: RPKI route origin authorisations, BGP route objects, reverse DNS, and the cryptographic keys used to prove ownership to cloud providers.

Every allocation is drawn fresh from isp6's RIPE NCC address pool: pristine, portable, and yours to announce from any network. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, a colocation facility, or all of them at once. No vendor lock-in. No inherited reputation. No re-numbering when you change providers.

These guides are written for two audiences: the engineers who design, build, and secure IPv6 networks, and the managers and leaders who fund, govern, and drive adoption across their organisations. Both perspectives are essential: technical excellence without organisational alignment produces networks that nobody uses, and executive sponsorship without engineering depth produces programmes that cannot deliver.

For Engineers

Technical guides for cloud architects, network engineers, and security practitioners working with isp6 allocations.

IPv6 Fundamentals

  • Designing the Next Internet: An Introduction to IPv6: Start here. A ground-up tour of the protocol for engineers coming from IPv4: address anatomy, compression, the /64 split, scopes, multicast and anycast, and the SLAAC bootstrap
  • IPv6 in the Wild: A Field Reference: The cheat sheet for parsing and classifying an address at speed from a log line, firewall rule, or ticket. The four-bit decoder, expanding compressed addresses, and the prefix-spotting matrix
  • The isp6 Prefix Chart: How many /48s, /56s, or /64s fit inside any prefix, plus the IPv4 CIDR mask table. The reference card to keep open while sizing an allocation or designing aggregation
  • Planning Your isp6 Allocation: Estimating, procuring, and structuring a /48 or /44. Hierarchical models, the estimation matrix, bisection method, and hardening point-to-point links and loopbacks
  • Stop Thinking in IPv4: Misconceptions That Sabotage Your IPv6 Deployment: Subnetting, ICMPv6, NAT, ULA, IPsec, host scanning, and the mental models that need updating before you deploy
  • Transition Mechanisms for Dual-Stack Networks: Dual-stack, NAT44, CGNAT, NAT64, DNS64, 464XLAT, DS-Lite, MAP-T/E, SIIT-DC, and how to choose between them. The decision matrix for the years your network has to talk to both protocols at once
  • Multihoming IPv6 Without the Renumbering Tax: Why two provider-assigned prefixes is fragile, the source-address trap in RFC 6724, what the industry actually settled on, and how a prefix registered to you turns failover into a routing change instead of a renumber. Draws on Brian Carpenter's book6
  • Securing IPv6: An Operational Field Guide: The security surface that is genuinely IPv6's own: the honest encryption story (is it really "built in"?), first-hop and Neighbour Discovery threats with RA-Guard, extension-header and ingress filtering, address privacy, topology hiding without NAT, and RPKI routing integrity. Draws on Brian Carpenter's book6 and RFC 9099

Bring Your Own IP (BYOIP) to Cloud Providers

Step-by-step guides for isp6 members bringing their PA allocation to each major cloud platform. Every guide covers what isp6 handles for you, what you configure on the cloud side, cost implications, reference architecture, and rollback procedures.

For Managers and Leaders

Strategic guidance for IT directors, programme managers, and technology leaders responsible for IPv6 adoption across their organisation.

IPv6 Strategy and Governance

  • Digital Sovereignty Starts at the Network Layer: Why senior leaders should care about who controls their IP address space. Covers vendor lock-in, IP reputation, NIS2/DORA compliance exposure, and how portable BYOIP via isp6 restores contract leverage and business continuity

IPv6 Programme Delivery

  • Building an IPv6 Integrated Project Team: Why IPv6 fails as a networking project and succeeds as a cross-functional programme. Covers organisational culture, Team Topologies, change management, and the integrated team structure that successful deployments require

Further reading

Outside reading we recommend to isp6 members:

  • book6: a collaborative, open-source, practical introduction to IPv6, maintained by Brian Carpenter. Several of the guides above draw on it.

Podcasts we recommend to isp6 members:

  • IPv6 Buzz: a dedicated IPv6 podcast from Packet Pushers, hosted by Ed Horley, Tom Coffeen, and Nick Buraglio. Practitioner-level conversations on IPv6 deployment, addressing, and operations.

Take control of your network identity

Every isp6 membership includes a portable /48 IPv6 PA allocation. Announce it from any cloud, colo, or on-premises network. Self-service, registered in the RIPE Database within minutes, and yours for the

Get your /48 →