World IPv6 day, are you ready?
World IPv6 day is coming, if you’ve not already experimented with IPv6 now is the time to try it out.
So, global networking is on the cusp of a big change. IPv4 addresses are already getting quite scarce and ISPs are being allocated v6 addresses with every request — whether they want them or not — in an attempt to increase adoption of the new standard. At some point soon new users will be unable to get a v4 address and that means they won’t be able to connect to your site or service. With less than one month remaining until World IPv6 Day, a global test if IPv6 infrastructure and the effect on end users, it’s time to try out v6 connectivity for yourself.
Many large organisations including Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft will be taking part and enabling IPv6 DNS records on their websites, which means that, should you have IPv6 connectivity, you’ll be connecting via the new-fangled protocol. But what about users who don’t have IPv6 connectivity? Well, for the most part they’ll happily continue to connect via IPv4. There may be a few instances where a bad configuration, such as the computer thinking it has IPv6 connectivity when it does not, that could result in slow or no access to the sites, but finding out who is affected is part of this global networking experiment. Fortunately ARIN has a comprehensive wiki covering many of these potential issues.
If you want to test your IPv6 connectivity there are a number of sites which will break this down for you such as ipv6-test.com and for the more technically inclined test-ipv6.com or simply visit one of the IPv6 demonstration pages set up by Google or Facebook. Note that the latter two will only work if you already have an IPv6 connection.
Should you not have IPv6 connectivity already, and most users don’t, it’s easy to get setup with providers such as Hurricane Electric who provide a free tunnel service. Once set-up your IPv6 traffic goes through the tunnel to one of Hurricane Electric’s many points of presence and out onto the wider v6 Internet. I’ve been using this service to provide IPv6 connectivity to my home network since February and am extremely pleased with both the stability and speed. In addition Hurricane Electric provides DNS services which have been invaluable to getting me fully IPv6 ready.
Hurricane Electrics service also includes some fantastic training material with their v6 certification and has an enthusiastic forum where your questions can be answered by knowledgable users and involved staff, and keeping up with IPv6 news is equally easy with their regular web casts.
With the availability of fast, free connectivity there really is no excuse not to give IPv6 a go, both at home and crucially in your organisation.