“Yeah! IPv6! Happy IPv6 Day! wait what’s IPv6?”
If you, like most people haven’t got an idea what’s going on, then look no further than Technogram.
What’s all this IPv6?
Well, IPv6 is the generation of Internet Protocol or IP (for short). We used to all use IPv4, however, the addresses were 32 bit. This meant that we were running out of IP addresses.
Good thing for IPv6, it is 128 bit. This means it offers a large range of IP addresses. In fact 2^96 times more than IPv4 (2^96 = 79228162514264337593543950336). Meaning the number of IP addresses will be virtually infinite.
What does an IPv6 address look like?
Like this! 2001:db8:cafe::1
compared to an IPv4 address 192.168.148.1
So what’s your point?
The IPv4 space is quickly becoming exhausted, necessitating the migration to IPv6.
You can read more about IPv6 in its Wikipedia entry or in the free book, The Second Internet. You can use IPv6 tunnels if your ISP does not offer IPv6 connectivity yet. Using http://test-ipv6.com/, you can verify IPv6 connectivity.
Why is there are day dedicated to the migration of IPv6?
Well, according NetworkComputing.com (an IPv6 site)
“A survey of IT professionals shows a lack of education and preparedness for the transition from the IPv4 system of IP addresses to the new IPv6 standard. The survey by Infoblox, shows that 80 percent of about 2,400 respondents feel that they are not educated enough on the subject to perform an IPv6 migration, half don’t know which of their network elements support IPv6 today, and 70 percent are concerned about whether they can successfully implement an IPv6 deployment.”
So a day has been brought forward by the Internet giants such as Facebook, Google, Akami, Yahoo, Cisco, etc to raise awareness and to educate people so that migration will be easier!
And there it is!
Happy IPv6 Day!
Technogram 