Internet Address Overhaul

On June 8th a global trial of the internets new addressing system will be undertaken. Arranged by the internet-society, online organisations are being encouraged to make their sites available on the IPv6 addressing system for 24 hours, allowing any bugs to be ironed out before the switchover.

What is IPv6 and Why Do We Need It?

To understand IPv6 you first need to understand the currect system known as IPv4. IPv4 is the current way in which systems on the internet are addressed, based on 4 sets of numbers between 0 and 255 and known as an IP address, this address allows users to access exactly what they want to see. An example of an IP address is 213.171.218.147, this is the IP address of www.mcware.co.uk and is what users would see if they typed it into their browser. IPv4 was created with the birth of the internet and allows for around 4 billion different IP addresses, this may seem like a lot but with only around 14% of these left available they are expected to run out within a couple of years.

IPv6 was developed to address the issues brought about by the IPv4 protocol. IPv6 is a 128 bit addressing system and allows for around 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses, enough for trillions of addresses for every person on earth.

Do We Need To Do Anything?

99.5% of users won't need to do anything, the majority of modern Operating Systems now have support for IPv6 addressing and so will fully support the new system. The odd few users that run custom network setups may need to adjust their setups to account for the new addressing system but information will be fully available as the switchover comes closer.

Google and Facebook already currently run IPv6 versions of their sites allowing users to test their systems and make sure they will work.

For more information on the IPv6 protocol click here to view the wiki page. For information on the global test, click here for more details.