Celebrating the World IPv6 Day!

June 8 happens to be World IPv6 Day. On this day, tomorrow, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Akamai and Limelight Networks will be among some of the major global organizations offering content over IPv6 networks on a 24-hour test flight! World IPv6 Day's goal is to motivate organizations -- ISPs, hardware vendors, OS vendors, web companies, etc., to prepare their services for IPv6, as IPv4 addresses run out!

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a version of the Internet Protocol (IP) that is designed to succeed Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). The growth of the Internet has mandated a need for more addresses than is possible with IPv4. IPv6 allows for vastly more addresses.

Thanks to Lauren Willard at Sterling Communications, I got into a conversation with Dave Kresse, CEO of Mu Dynamics, on the eve of the IPv6 Day. Mu Dynamics has been working with network operators and service providers for years now to ensure that their networks are up for IPv6.

Wednesday, the company will be announcing a free solution for network operators and service providers to ensure that their networks will operate smoothly both during the transition to IPv6 and once it's complete. Mu is doing all of this in conjunction with the leading lab for IPv6 testing in the nation - UNH-IOL InterOperability Lab.

Talking about the significance of the World IPv6 day from Mu's perspective, Kresse says that everybody has been talking about IPv6 for the longest time, and a majority of our customers have been focusing on it for awhile. The IPv6 World Day bring additional visibility to the exhaustion of the IPv4 addresses and for those who have not started to make the transition, they are definitely behind the game.

As for Mu's role in IPv6, he adds: "For the last several years, our proven testing solution has helped network equipment manufacturers and operators around the world with their IPv6 testing and certification. The Mu Test Suite for IPv6 is comprehensive suite of automated testings solutions and test content assisting customers and prospects to test, certify and validate their products and services for conformance, security and resiliency."

So, what is the upcoming solution from Mu all about? Dave Kresse notes: "Mu Dynamics has partnered with the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab to provide Free IPv6 Test cases for Network Equipment Manufacturers and Operators to test their devices and services. The offering is a comprehensive set of test cases to validate that the networking devices and services support IPv6."

On the role of the specific labs or lab - UNH-IOL InterOperability Lab - he says: "The offering (upcoming solution) is a combination of UNH-IOL test content, such as NUST USGv6 NPD for testing security devices ability to handle IPv6 and the IPv6 forums, which was developed by Mu for IPv6 Ready test content for hosts and routers, which has also been endorsed by UNH. The offering by Mu combines both of sets of test content for USGv6 and IPv6 Ready testing."

Finally, what's the way ahead going to be like? According to him: "The rumors of IPv6 causing a worldwide catastrophe are greatly overblown, in our opinion – we know because we’ve testing for years and we have seen the results with our customers. There will be some issues and some potential security risks, but we have seen with our customers they have been prepping for the IPv6 transition for years."

For those interested, the UNH comprehensive test cases for certifying and testing devices and services is available on http:\\testcloud.mudynamics.com .