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(Toronto) – Canada’s advanced research and education (RE&I) networks are leading the way in helping their users adopt the next – generation Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and celebrating World IPv6 Day today to help raise awareness of the need for organizations to transition to IPv6.
Today, Canada’s advanced networks for research and education – CANARIE , ACORN – NS, ACORN – NL, Aurora College, BCNET, Cybera, MRNet, University of New Brunswick, ORION , University of PEI, RISQ, SRnet, and Yukon College – join Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and others in raising awareness of the urgency on World IPv6 Day.
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 address es 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.
ORION, Ontario’ s advanced network for research and education, is an official participant in World IPv6 Day. Visit www.orion.on.ca to check if you can view the website over IPv6.
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 a dvanced 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 digitalinnovators.wordpress.com