Extility update has full support for 'crucially important' IPv6

Just months before the current batch of IPv4 addresses are set to run out, Flexiant has claimed it has become the first cloud software provider in Europe to offer full commercial support for IPv6.

The company has announced a major upgrade release with the launch of its production-ready cloud platform, Extility 1.3.

Flexiant founder Tony Lucas said he believed IPv6 was now “crucially important” because more providers would have to start providing IPv6 addresses to their clients over the coming months and “those customers will have to adopt a dual IPv4/IPv6 strategy”.

“Although IPv4 isn't going to disappear, necessity will mean it will finally start coming into more active use,” he said. “Cloud platforms like Extility are quite often used for new projects or advancements in existing projects.  This presents the ideal time for hosting companies and their clients to look at starting to move to IPv6 at the same time.”

The platform features a “small footprint install”, designed to capitalise on interest from companies that are looking to “dip their toe” into running their own cloud platform but are unsure about the cost and time commitment required to get started. It allows data centre operators to pilot cloud offerings with relatively little investment in time or capital before developing the deployment into a fully-fledged platform for customers.

"We have developed a minimalist install configuration of our platform which means a company can be up and running in a couple of hours,” Lucas said. “This means that anyone wanting to get started using cloud technologies can do so, as we have significantly reduced both the cost and complexity barriers.”

As well as “small footprint installation”, the new Extility release includes two other enterprise features that will allow licensees to integrate the cloud into existing systems with ease, including foreign keys and VLAN interworking.