Web giants to enable IPv6 on “World IPv6 Day”
On 8 June, 2011, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Akamai and Limelight Networks will be among some of the major organizations that will offer their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour “test flight”.
The goal of the Test Flight on the IPv6 Day is to motivate other organizations across the industry like ISPs, hardware makers, OS Makers and web companies to prepare their services for IPv6 to ensure a successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out. PS: On IPv6 day, the tech giants wont be completely shutting down IPv4 but will just be providing IPv6 as an alternate way to access the same pages.
The addressing we follow today is IPv4, which is 32bit. This means there are 2 to the power of 32 , or 4.3 billion addresses available. Although we are not completely out of IPv4 addresses, they have been already allotted in groups to ISPs, organizations etc.. A part of the address remain allocated but unused.
IPv6 uses 128bits for addressing. Meaning 2 to the power of 128 -or 340 trillion-trillion-trillion new addresses. This would mean enough addresses for the entire Internet population and every device connected to the Internet a humongous times over.
IPv6 Links
Note: These links will be accessible only if your PC/Network supports IPv6
Google IPv6 @ http://ipv6.google.com/
Facebook IPv6 @ http://www.v6.facebook.com/
Related Links
Access Google services over IPv6: Google over IPv6
Test your IPv6 connectivity here.
/via arstechnica | Image source: Living with IPv6
