Today marks a huge milestone in the networking industry – the official launch by the Internet Society (ISOC) of the new IPv6-based Internet helps ensure its continued growth and impact on the world economy. This new Internet has been in the works for over two decades, including the publication of the first IPv6 standard (RFC2460) by Steven Deering of Cisco and Robert Hinden of Nokia. Since then the industry has made incredible investments in technology to reach this successful achievement including today’s official participation of over 2000 websites and 50+ network operators. According to some of our own calculations we’re estimating that 30% of the world’s web pages are now directly reachable by IPv6.
For us at Cisco on our Service Provider Marketing team, it’s been an exciting journey. We first sought to make the industry challenge imposed by the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses more widely understood by a non-technical audience. Hence our effort at some humor with Read More »
As with a rocket launch into space, this is a moment where the herculean efforts of individuals from across the globe have converged to set off a chain reaction of events towards a common goal. The goal in our case is nothing less than retrofitting one of the largest operational systems mankind has ever created with a new foundation to help propel the Internet to the stratospheric levels of growth and innovation the world has come to expect.
Cisco has been preparing for some time and is proud to be among the founding participants of the World IPv6 Launch. Cisco has now permanently enabled IPv6 on www.cisco.com and has IPv6 enabled by default throughout our line of Linksys E-series home routers. We are rolling out IPv6 progressively across our own enterprise network, are leading the way in IPv6 Certifications, and our solutions for IPv6 deployment are in use by service provider and enterprise network operators across the globe. Most importantly, we will be continuing to work closely with our customers, Cisco Services, and development teams to ensure that any problems that may arise are addressed as quickly and efficiently as possible during this critical phase of deployment.
This is a giant leap forward for the Internet, but there is still much work to do in order to release our dependence on IPv4 and allow IPv6 to reach its full potential. While we now have websites representing a majority of Internet traffic advertising their IPv6 reachability to the entire world, the majority of new Internet connected devices shipping with IPv6 built-in, and more Internet Service Providers than ever before enabling IPv6 for their customers as part of normal business, we will have to fly with both protocols at the same time for several years before we get to the point where we can cut loose our first-stage IPv4 engines and soar to new heights without them weighing us down. We have certainly left the platform now though, and are on a clear trajectory toward significant and sustained growth of the Internet based on its widespread adoption of IPv6.
Congratulations to everyone who helped to make this historic launch happen. Because of your vision, dedication, and hard work, IPv6 has left the laboratory and entered the mainstream. The world has its new Internet Protocol.
In January 2011, Internet companies around the globe announced they would come together to perform the largest test of IPv6 deployment the world had ever seen. Cisco was among the first to proudly announce its official participation in World IPv6 Day, and after several months of preparation and an intense 24 hours in June, it was clear that we had witnessed a watershed moment in the move towards global deployment of IPv6.
So what next after this? As reports came in and logs were analyzed over the days and weeks after, it became increasingly clear that we didn’t need just another global test. Instead, we needed to enable IPv6 once and for all. So, on June 6, 2012, the industry will again unite but not just for single day. This time, we turn it on and leave it on. We’re calling this World IPv6 Launch, and it is now the largest commitment to full-scale production IPv6 deployment the world has ever seen.
For websites, the commitment is similar to last year in that reachability via IPv6 will be advertised within the global Domain Name System (DNS). This time, however, the DNS entry will remain indefinitely rather than disappear after a single day. In addition to websites, the Internet Society has setup requirements for participation by residential Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and makers of home networking equipment. The rationale for expanding to these two specific areas is that while IPv6 has been available in some models of consumer-grade networking equipment and from some ISPs for a number of years, it was very rarely enabled by default and as such very rarely in use despite the majority of internet devices being capable of IPv6.
In order to tackle these remaining barriers to deployment, new Internet subscriptions and consumer-grade home routers will begin to appear with IPv6 enabled by default as the normal course of doing business. Specifically, participating home networking equipment makers are committing to include IPv6 enabled by default through a wide range of their products (both “low end” and “high end” home routers) by June 6. For ISPs, websites will be measuring what percentage of users have IPv6 enabled, with a target of no less than 1% before the World IPv6 Launch deadline. The 1% is a “running start”, such that after June 6 we’ll be on a path of sustained growth in IPv6 deployment going forward.
Cisco is again pleased to announce its full participation and support, both by enabling IPv6 on www.cisco.com indefinitely and by enabling IPv6 by default in our new line of E-series home routers. In addition, we will be working with our customers, Cisco Services and development teams to ensure that as many companies as possible can participate and those that do are successful.
June 6, 2012. This is the year we Launch a new Internet Protocol.
Today marks a huge milestone in the networking industry – the official launch by the Internet Society (ISOC) of the new IPv6-based Internet helps ensure its continued growth and impact on the world economy. This new Internet has been in the works for over two decades, including the publication of the first IPv6 standard (RFC2460) by Steven Deering of Cisco and Robert Hinden of Nokia. Since then the industry has made incredible investments in technology to reach this successful achievement including today’s official participation of over 2000 websites and 50+ network operators. According to some of our own calculations we’re estimating that 30% of the world’s web pages are now directly reachable by IPv6.
