Monthly Archive for May, 2011

On June 8, 2011, PEER 1 Hosting will join some of the Internet’s largest players to take part in World IPv6 Day. Organized by the Internet Society, World IPv6 Day will be a chance for the Internet at large to take a 24 hour “test flight” through the still relatively unknown realm of IPv6. Participating content providers will be serving their websites via IPv6 for a 24 hour period, with network operators  standing by to observe, support and learn from the challenges that will inevitably surface throughout the day.

The goal of IPv6 Day is threefold – to Promote Awareness, to Test Connectivity and to Encourage Implementation.

IPv6 is currently widely in use by many large networks, but this will be the first chance we’ve had to see it in action on a global scale. While the majority of Internet users should be unaffected during the trial, it is estimated that .05% of users may experience difficulties accessing participating sites due to mis-configured or misbehaving network equipment.

The hope is that June 8th will provide a controlled and cooperative environment for network operators and content providers to work together to identify and resolve any issues regarding global IPv6 scalability, incomplete IPv6 interconnection, issues with implementation of various transitional technologies and overall brokenness within home and private networks.

The Catch-22 of Content vs Connectivity

One of the biggest challenges with IPv6 implementation is the ongoing chicken-vs-egg syndrome. Widespread adoption is not going to happen until content is available in the IPv6 address space, but without an IPv6 audience there isn’t a lot of motivation for content providers to upgrade their infrastructure to support IPv6. That is, of course, until the day when their local RIR‘s supply of IPv4 addresses runs dry and suddenly these organizations find themselves scrambling to compensate for their lack of prior preparation, along with thousands of others who will suddenly be facing the same challenges.

With major content providers such as Facebook, Akamai and Yahoo stepping up to provide their content via IPv6, the hope is that increased awareness will encourage Internet Industry players to follow suit and take proactive action toward IPv6 implementation.

Fight FUD with Proactive Action

With all the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt surrounding IPv6, the upcoming transition can seem daunting to say the least. One of the main goals of IPv6 Day is to serve as a catalyst to encourage service providers to begin devoting the necessary resources to their teams now, instead of taking an avoidant head in the sand approach until IPv4 is entirely depleted and a real panic ensues. To do this, technical teams will need time and resources allocated for testing, training and evaluating what will be needed to support a temporarily dual stacked and eventually native IPv6 environment.

Here are PEER 1 Hosting, preparing to bring our IPv6 web presence online for IPv6 Day has definitely been a positive collaborative learning experience. PEERs across IT, Development, Support and Engineering had to work together in order to ensure our site could be duplicated in the IPv6 space in time for the big day. We had to address concerns around DNS, monitoring, content availability and DDoS mitigation, to name a few. At the moment we are in the final testing stages but are confident that you will be able to access PEER1.com over IPv6 in early June.

Participation

If you are interested in participating in IPv6 day you can start by testing your IPv6 connectivity. With limited IPv6 penetration into the end user market, it is likely you will continue using IPv4 for the time being, unless your home router or modem supports IPv6 and you’ve specifically asked your ISP for IPv6 connectivity. If you happen to be  connecting from a network that supports IPv6 – lucky you! We encourage you to test out many of the participating sites – especially peer1.com and let us know how it works out.

If you’d like more information on World IPv6 Day please see the ISOC IPv6 Day FAQ.