The likelihood of the Internet coming to a grinding halt is minimal, thanks to a dedicated group of people that have been hard at work developing the next generation of number ranges - IPv6.
This is according to the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), welcoming yesterday's World IPv6 Day saying its members have been gearing up for the day for some time.
According to the ISPA, the World IPv6 Day was an event designed to evaluate how well the IPV6 operates in real-time and its real world effects, having previously had the opportunity to iron out any kinks in a synthetic environment.
Latest reports state that the 24-hour global test run did not hit any major glitches, according to a spokesman for Arbor Networks, an Internet security company monitoring the IPv6 activity.
“We didn't see any big problems or slowdowns. Things went much as they had the day before,” said the spokesman, who added that Arbor Networks doesn't have information on how the companies participating in the test are fairing individually. High-profile participants included Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
Internet organisations have been warning for nearly a decade that Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are running out.
Running dry
Current IP (IPv4) addresses consist of four numbers ranging between zero and 255, each separated by a dot.
The ISPA explains that although this gives 4.3 billion potential addresses, the way these numbers have been assigned over the years means they are running out.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority assigned its last IPv4 block in February this year and the regional body, AfriNIC anticipates that it will run out by 2012.
ICASA councillor William Stucke says while attention to the change to IPv6 is urgent, there is no doomsday scenario, provided interoperability between IPv4 and IPv6 is working well, and access networks still have sufficient IPv4 addresses available for growth in the immediate future.
Making a particular network device operate with both IPv4 and IPv6, or with IPv6 only is, in many cases, the software equivalent of 'flicking a switch', according to Stucke.
“The difficulty lies in the fact that a typical network contains many such devices, some of which are lacking the switch. Further, before one can consider 'flicking the switch', he must understand what exactly is involved. Understanding, planning, testing and more testing are required for a successful transition,” he notes.
An IPv6 address consists of 128 bits, therefore allowing an astronomical number of machines, equivalent to the value of two raised to the power of 128, states the ISPA.
“Many global tier one providers have been implementing IPv6 on their networks for years and many now run a global IPv6-enabled network,” says ISPA's Rob Hunter.
“ISPA too has ensured it has IPv6-enabled peering points in the Johannesburg and Cape Town exchanges,” he adds.
The sooner, the better
Furthermore, he points out that ISPA encourages providers - both those with and those without their own networks - who have not yet gone the IPv6 route, to start gearing up for this as soon as possible.
“World IPv6 Day had the support on a global scale of Internet service providers, hardware makers, operating system vendors and Web companies, including some of the largest social networks and service providers in the world.
“It is the critical test of everybody's ability to continue effectively utilising the Internet well into the future.
“The long and the short of it is that if you had trouble reaching Google or Facebook yesterday, you will need to have a long, hard talk with your Internet service provider in the very near future,” notes Hunter.
Share