World IPv6 day, occurred on June 8th, 2011, designed as a global-scale test flight of IPv6 and is sponsored by the Internet Society.
On World IPv6 Day, major web companies and other industry players came together to enable IPv6 on their main websites for 24 hours.
The goal is to motivate organizations across the industry to prepare their services for IPv6 to ensure a successful transition as IPv4 address space runs out.
All major Internet industry players will need to take action to ensure a successful transition. For example:
- Internet service providers need to make IPv6 connectivity available to their users
- Web companies need to offer their services over IPv6
- Operating system makers may need to implement specific software updates
- Backbone providers may need to establish IPv6 peering with each other
- Hardware and home gateway manufacturers may need to update firmware
Most Internet users will not be affected. Web services, Internet service providers, and OS manufacturers will be updating their systems to ensure Internet users enjoy uninterrupted service. In rare cases, users may still experience connectivity issues when visiting participating Websites. Users can visit an IPv6 test site to check if their connectivity will be impacted. If the test indicates a problem, they can disable IPv6 or ask their ISPs to help fix the problem.
For more information at the ISOC – click here.
Summary of Results
Results of the day were very good. Facebook seemed to have problems with some of the modules (users in Amsterdam and Canada complained), and many sites got the opportunity to fix minor glitches (e.g. SUSE). Most users I have spoken to did little or nothing to test IPv6, nor did they notice any usage issues throughout the day. Let me know below if you had any experiences or issues. We would love to hear about them.