Major Net slowdown hours away

Source: CNET/cbs

(CNET)

The computing industry has begun a major 24-hour test today to work the kinks out of IPv6, a disruptive but necessary overhaul of the Internet's inner workings.

Starting at midnight, Universal Coordinated Time on June 8--or 5 p.m. PT today--dozens of companies lit up servers, Web sites, and network infrastructure that communicate using Internet Protocol version 6. The test, called World IPv6 Day, provides a bit of deadline, albeit one that's more artificial and less pressing than the Y2K bug's January 1, 2000, zero hour.

Unfortunately, the IPv6 test could disrupt the Net for some people who have badly configured hardware or software, with a Web site taking more than two minutes to load instead of a few seconds. Fortunately, though, the problem probably won't affect very many people, and the test will help identify any trouble spots.

Yahoo estimates 0.05 percent of visitors to its Web site will see very slow response when their computers request IPv6 information that can't actually be received. That's a tiny percentage, but multiplied by Yahoo's huge traffic, it's still something like 30,000 to 50,000 people a day, said Adam Bechtel, the vice president for Yahoo's Infrastructure Group, who's overseeing the company's IPv6 transition.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/08/tech/cnettechnews/main20070084.shtml

:scared:

...considering Y2K turned out to not be a big deal - I agree.

As a techie nerd I can tell you
1.) This is almost over (stated yesterday evening)
2.) The whole point of IPv6 day is to show people that the vast majority of kinks have been worked out and there is nothing for websites to be scared of in enabling IPv6
3.) Many of the big sites e.g. Google have been running IPv6 for a long time already
4.) We NEED to move to IPv6, the sooner the better, and getting sites to enable it is the first step

Really, it's sometimes hard to find a news article which ISN'T driven mostly by fearmongering. Oy.

IPv6 is a *lot* smarter about routing, because so much routing information (as in the intended address, not path to take) is built in to every packet. With IPv4, the address didn't say anything about which network it needed to go to (without a ARIN check), and everything was handled via routing tables that were blind to the destination.

;-)

I wonder if this is the burp.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4876695

Aurora's tonite???

I'm months ahead in computer slo