To IP or not to IP, that is the question

Public IPv4 addresses, essential for remotely accessing devices scattered across the globe, are rapidly running out. Amidst this persistent drought we are seeing the rapid proliferation of remote devices worldwide, presenting a significant challenge. This begs the question: what alternatives are there where secure remote access is required?

For years, the internet has relied on the IPv4 addressing system. However, its limited pool of addresses has been overwhelmed by the ever-increasing number of connected devices. The global shortage of IPv4 addresses has now reached critical levels, with the average market price soaring to around $40 per IP address. This renders their utilisation in larger deployments increasingly impractical.

Although IPv6 offers a viable long-term solution, with its massive address pool, its adoption and migration process has been slower than anticipated, due to complexity and the required infrastructure upgrades. It’s evident that we need to contemplate alternative approaches.

One such approach is to leverage our Remote Access Proxy feature, which allows secure remote access to field devices without the need for public IP addresses. Through this self-configurable feature, data can be securely pushed or pulled without requiring a fixed public IP address. Moreover, removing fixed public IP addresses from devices significantly reduces the attack surface, minimising the risk of cyber attacks.