title: Corporate VPNs are dead
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pub_date: 2019-12-16
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author: ungleich network team
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twitter_handle: ungleich
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_hidden: no
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_discoverable: yes
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abstract:
It's a hard truth, but that's how it is. You need to act now.
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body:

Your company has given you a VPN to securely connect to your company
network. Now you can access resources of your company network
securely. Great, isn't it?

Besides it doesn't work anymore. Traditional corporate VPNs are
dead. Literally.

## Dead? Why?

There is a single problem with corporate VPNs: they try to use IPv4.
And if you are in an IPv6 only network, your corporate VPN stops to
work.

## IPv6 only networks - who has that?

Turns out that
[RIPE ran out of IPv4
space](https://www.ripe.net/publications/news/about-ripe-ncc-and-ripe/the-ripe-ncc-has-run-out-of-ipv4-addresses).
a couple of weeks ago. This practically means that companies cannot
get new IPv4 addresses anymore. Modern companies have already switched
to IPv6 only networks and mobile networks are converted to IPv6 only
everywhere in the world.

Basically, everyone is moving towards IPv6 only networks.
Running dual stack networks is significantly more complexity, so the
tendency is to skip this step and go IPv6 only directly.

So in short:

* IPv4 ran out
* Networks are already switching to IPv6
* Dual stack networks (both IPv4 and IPv6) is too complex
* IPv6 only is the new default
* Your corporate VPN does not work in IPv6 only enviroments

## Can't things just stay as they are?

Unfortunately not. The main problem is that your VPN is intended to be
used while you are out of the office. The cost for acquiring or
running IPv4 networks is growing on a daily basis. So while your
company might be able to buy expensive IPv4 addresses, the network
that you travel to, might not be able to afford IPv4 space anymore.

## ... but I have never seen an IPv6 only network!

That might be fully true and we have no doubt about this. However,
providers everywhere in the world are changing to IPv6 only networks
and especially modern IT startups will not build networks with IPv4
anymore.

So you are more likely to encounter IPv6 only networks in modern
organisations. And the fact that you haven't seen one yet, does not
make it more unlikely that you will encounter one soon.

## ... but I need the corporate VPN

There are two easy ways to get the corporate VPN back working:

* update the corporate VPN to support IPv6
* switch to an Open Source alternative that fully supports IPv6

## Help!

If your local network group does not know how adopt either of the two
technologies, feel free to send a mail to **support -at-
ungleich.ch**, we can support you in finding a solution.

Or if you want to talk to like minded people, we invite you to join
the [IPv6.Chat](https://IPv6.chat), where many people are successfully
migrated to IPv6.

Or you can checkout the [IPv6VPN](https://IPv6VPN.ch) as an
alternative to your current VPN solution.
