Curran is taking charge of ARIN at an important juncture in the non-profit's12-year history. ARIN is as the crossroads of the transition from IPv4, which has been the Internet's main communications protocol since its inception 30 years ago, to the long-anticipated upgrade known as IPv6. The remaining IPv4 addresses are scheduled for depletion in two years, which will require carriers and enterprises to support IPv6. IPv6 offers vastly more IP addresses than IPv4 along with built-in security and enhanced support for peer-to-peer and video streaming applications.

We spoke with Curran about why it's so important for enterprises to start preparing their public-facing Internet services to support IPv6. Here are excerpts from our conversation.

How will your role as ARIN President and CEO differ from your previous role as chair of the ARIN Board of Trustees?

ARIN provides an essential service for ISPs and large enterprises that need IP addresses and autonomous system numbers. It's an operational job, and one that requires a high level of focus. I felt that it wasn't reasonable to do that and the chairman's job. As of today, ARIN President and CEO will be my permanent role. I'm still on the ARIN Board of Trustees, but we have a new chair, [president of the Internet Systems Consortium]. My focus is on the day-to-day operations and making sure ARIN is there for the ISP and enterprise community.

Why take on the job as ARIN president and CEO at this point in time?