In the build up to World IPv6 day approaching on June 8th, high profile Internet companies are speaking out about of the importance of the new addressing standard to the future of the web.
With IPv4 addresses beginning to run out globally and a huge increase in networked devices predicted, Erik Kline, IPv6 Software Engineer at Google has described the new standard as “critical to the long term prosperity of the open internet”.
Jay Parikh, director of engineering at Facebook, who are also supporting World IPv6 day added, “We’re working together with our peers to keep the Internet open and make sure all computers and devices stay connected.”
Managed hosting provider NetBenefit is one of hundreds of websites and Internet service providers around the world participating in World IPv6 day– the first global trial of the new IPv6 Internet protocol, organized by the Internet Society.
Darren Wiltshire, Head of Technical Engineering at NetBenefit has been preparing for IPv6 for several months, ensuring that both IPv4 & IPv6 addresses can co-exist within the NetBenefit hosting environment.
“Although IPv6 represents a whole new world of opportunities, there are still a lot of devices, websites and networks that rely on IPv4 and we will continue to support both standards, though customers can now start to experiment with IPv6 hosting” says Wiltshire.
According to a Cisco report last week, it’s expected that there will be 15 billion devices needing Internet connectivity by 2015 – two for every person on the planet.
When the 32 bit IPv4 standard was introduced in 1980, it was not envisaged that we would run out of the estimated 4.3 billion addresses available. IPv6 is a 128 bit addressing system that theoretically allows for 670 quadrillion IP addresses.
Source: http://www.worldipv6day.org
http://www.netbenefit.com/news/netbenefit-future-proofing-world-wide-web-ipv6-enabled-hosting