As noted on June 12, the official World IPv6 Launch produced some notable objective measurements of IPv6 deployment. “It’s for real” is not just a punchy tag line!

Now that the world has had some time to step back and consider the impact from several angles, the Internet Society is dedicating its standard IETF meeting “briefing panel” session to looking at some of the concrete objective takeaways. Details of the briefing panel, which will take place July 31 from 11:45am-12:45pm (PDT), are available here: http://www.internetsociety.org/isoc-panel-ietf-84 .

In selecting the panelists, I looked for people who would have a unique view into different aspects of the network. John Brzozowski (Comcast) looks at it from the end-user perspective, while Lorenzo Colitti (Google) can see the whole world as it reaches Google servers. Erik Nygren (Akamai) and George Michaelson (APNIC) have eyes in the middle of the network. Lee Howard (TWC) can step through the complexities of getting from 0 to 1% traffic over IPv6. And, as readers of this blog already know, Mat Ford (ISOC) has been keeping the overall view of measurements related to World IPv6 Launch.

I’m looking forward to seeing concrete data on deployment, reach and performance from the panelists. It’s clear that we’ve launched — how are we progressing? Are we picking up speed? What is becoming clearer as the obvious bottlenecks to further deployment and uptake?

Even more, I’m looking forward to an interactive discussion — between the panelists, and with the Internet engineers in the audience for the session — to help interpret the data and elaborate next steps for IPv6 deployment.

If you’re planning on attending the IETF meeting in Vancouver, consider attending the briefing panel in person. Otherwise, feel free to tune in to the streaming audio from the session, or have a listen when it’s posted.

Please note this is a separate registration from the regular IETF Meeting. The registration form can be found on the Internet Society’s site.

Leslie Daigle
Chief Internet Technology Officer
Internet Society
daigle@isoc.org

Now is the time to offer a huge congratulations and thanks to all the organizations that committed to IPv6 deployment, as part of today’s World IPv6 Launch or simply because it’s the Right Thing for the Internet!

Today represents a significant milestone for IPv6 deployment as we put to bed rumours and myths that IPv6 was somehow undeployable or unusable in a production environment, as we see thousands of organizations turning it up in their production services. Let’s review:

• Over 60 access networks around the world are offering IPv6 as part of their standard Internet connectivity offering, and they are showing tangible IPv6 traffic. This isn’t just promises, it is reality.
• Over 3,000 websites, including the top-referenced ones from around the globe, have turned IPv6 on for their main site, and they are leaving it on. For good.
• Hardware manufacturers are enabling IPv6 (set to “on”, by default) in their home router equipment lines.

These are organizations that have thoroughly researched the implications of IPv6 deployment, and thoughtfully worked out their deployment plans — as part of their production services. And, it goes beyond IPv6 for websites: companies are deploying it where it matters for their business.

For those of us who have been participating in technology development and deployment on the Internet for a while, it’s pretty thrilling to see that organizations can still come together as a community, to collaboratively step up to doing the right thing. This is a key element of what makes the Internet so successful — it is what we build it to be.

You can start to see what this looks like here:

http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/

In a few days, we’ll have more detail from measurements made through the first 24 hours of IPv6 Launch. In the meantime, you can get a taste of how the world looks now, with expected “up and to the right” graphs:

Lars Eggert’s measurements: http://eggert.org/meter/ipv6

CIRA/Viagenie’s measurements of the situation in Canada (.ca): http://www.viagenie.ca/radarv6/

Informally, we’ve known that many more organizations are working to get IPv6 deployed. Nominum has done a survey that captures the commitment in numbers — http://www.nominum.com/press-release/nominum-ipv6-survey . There are significant IPv6 deployment plans on every continent.

Today is just the beginning — the Future is Forever!