Judgement Day: IPv6 Is Here

For those of you unfamiliar with IPv6, the day is here. What is IPv6? Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a version of the Internet Protocol (IP) is succeeding IPv4. IPv4 has been in place since 1981, and had 4,294,967,296 IP addresses. IPv6 will allow for more IP addresses, and thus the growth of the Internet will be allowed to continue. Companies like Google GOOG, Verizon VZ and AT&T T have been preparing for IPv6 for some time, so this is not going to be a situation where you sign on to the Internet and it's gone. "No one was caught off guard by this. The Internet technical community has been planning for IPv4 depletion for some time. But it means the adoption of IPv6 is now of paramount importance, since it will allow the Internet to continue its amazing growth and foster the global innovation we've all come to expect," Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's president and chief executive, said in comments obtained by IB Times. "This is a crucial phase in the transition, because while IPv6 is widely deployed in many networks, it's never been used at such a large scale before. We hope that by working together with a common focus, we can help the industry prepare for the new protocol, find and resolve any unexpected issues, and pave the way for global deployment," Lorenzo Colitti, Google's network engineer, said in a blog obtained by IB Times. There are around 400 companies participating in IPv6 day. "World IPv6 Day marks an important industry milestone with the first global-scale trial of IPv6," Jean McManus, executive director of Verizon's Corporate Technology organization, said in a statement. "Verizon was an early promoter and adopter of IPv6 back in the mid-1990s. It is very positive to see interest in IPv6 continuing to grow, and World IPv6 Day has just added to the IPv6 momentum."