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Sponsored by the Internet Society, World IPv6 Day was established to motivate organizations across the industry – including Internet service providers, hardware makers, operating system vendors and web companies – to prepare their products and services for IPv6 to ensure a successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out.

Without IPv6 functionality, Canadian researchers involved in international research collaboration projects will find themselves unable to access data or collaborate with their peers around the world who are IPv6-enabled. This is particularly true with leading IPv6-enabled countries like China and South Korea. The issue will become increasingly urgent in the next year, as more and more websites and online resources and applications are only available in the IPv6 space.

Therefore, it is essential that Canada’s research and education institutions migrate to IPv6, so that participation in international research collaborations is not interrupted.

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses, which connect computers and other devices to the Internet, are widely expected to run out by 2012. In some regions, this has already happened. IPv6 addresses this issue, which is growing in part due to the proliferation of “connected” devices – cell phones, cars, appliances, watches, even refrigerators – that require an IP address. IPv6 provides greater IP addressing capacity – more than 4 billion times more addresses than IPv4 – and it enhances security.

Internet users will not need to do anything differently on World IPv6 Day. Web services, Internet service providers, and operating system manufacturers will be updating their systems to ensure Internet users enjoy uninterrupted service. Participating websites will not switch from IPv4 to IPv6; they will enable IPv6 in addition to IPv4.

The CANARIE Network has been IPv6-enabled since 2000, and has championed efforts to transition Canada’s provincial and territorial research and education networks to the IPv6 platform. Over the past several months CANARIE has led an IPv6 working group whose objectives are to help Canadian universities and other institutions move towards IPv6 readiness and to promote and to support IPv6 awareness and training. CANARIE has also provided funding to its provincial network partners to complete their deployment plans, and conducted a series of 10 webinars on the technical requirements of the transition. The webinars have been recorded and are available as an ongoing resource.

About Canada’s advanced network alliance
Canada’s advanced network alliance is a community of advanced networks offering ultra-high-speed, fibre optic connectivity that links researchers, educators and innovators to each other and to data and tools across the country and around the world. These advanced networks enable secure, lightning-fast transmission of high-volume data sets (like DNA sequences), tools (like videoconferencing), and analyses (like climate models) that could not be transmitted over a commercial Internet without interfering with other users. Canada’s advanced network alliance is made up of all of the provincial, territorial and national networks for research and education. Learn more at http://digitalinnovators.wordpress.com/.

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