Now that we’ve had a few weeks to consider the aftermath of IPv6 Day 2012, we wanted to look into what the industry is saying are the key takeaways – so far – from this year’s event, in which thousands of organizations switched over to IPv6 - permanently. After all, IPv4 website addresses are essentially exhausted, while IPv6 has more than 340 trillion addresses, according to the Internet Society. This, the organization points out, is an IPv4 address for every star in the universe. Mind-boggling, right? Here’s what else people are saying:
IPv6 traffic didn’t spike on World IPv6 Day, but did see a gradual and significant increase starting two weeks before the actual day, 6 June, according to Arbor Networks. Internet Protocol version 6 traffic grew from 0.06 per cent to 0.15 per cent in that period, it said…The increased levels of IPv6 traffic has been steady since the event, Arbor added. “This shows that hopefully many of the newly enabled IPv6 services are here to stay – another important milestone on the road to ubiquitous IPv6 adoption.” - Adam Bender, ComputerWorld
While the commitment to always-on v6 was a big one, some experts predicted that we wouldn’t see a big jump in traffic rates during this year’s World IPv6 Launch. The reason for this was that many of the providers who are committing to v6 had already turned up their networks ahead of the launch and would be running the day of the event. However, Owen DeLong, IPv6 evangelist for Hurricane Electric, predicted a small spike in traffic would occur on June 6, followed by a leveling off and gradual move upward in traffic rates. He forecast that v6 traffic rates would “at least double if not quadruple again, possibly more, in the next year.” – Samantha Bookman, FierceTelecom
What are your predictions for IPv6 moving forward? Also, you can download your own copy of the World IPv6 infographic at www.worldipv6launch.org/infographic.
