Earlier today, IANA, the international body responsible for distributing Internet addresses, completed its final allocation of IPv4 addresses. IPv4 has been the primary communication protocol for the Internet for more than 20 years, so this final allocation marks the end of an era, to the extent the brief history of the Internet can be categorized this way.
Considering the rapid proliferation of personal computers, smartphones, networked appliances, and other connected devices around the world, it’s easy to conceive how we’ve already exhausted four billion IPv4 addresses.
Microsoft and other major technology companies have been working behind the scenes for years to outline a clear path to the next generation Internet Protocol, IPv6. Although a complete migration will take years, we are hopeful that the vast majority of people will never notice the transition.
Microsoft has worked as a member of Internet Society (ISOC) – and more generally the Internet community – to invest in and ensure that there is a seamless transition from IPv4 to IPv6. It is especially important for Microsoft’s online services like Bing to be prepared. For this reason, Bing is joining other major websites in “World IPv6 Day” on June 8, 2011 as part of the Internet Society’s effort to validate the readiness of IPv6 as new foundation of the Internet.
On June 8, we will enable world-wide IPv6 connectivity to Bing.com, for the purposes of a one-day test. Consumers with IPv6 Internet capabilities will automatically access this new method of connectivity. This necessitates both a device that supports IPv6 (like a Windows 7 PC), and support from your Internet provider.
IPv4 traffic will continue to connect to Bing without any change. In fact, most Bing users won’t even notice that this transition is occurring.
At Microsoft, we have been working towards the promise of a smooth and prudent transition, and teams across the company have been readying our products and services to support IPv6. Many of our products, like Windows and Windows Server, have had robust IPv6 support for years.
This is another step in the multi-year process to shepherd in a new Internet era, with billions upon billions of addresses representing billions of devices and users. The number of addresses available under IPv6 is more than 300 trillion trillion trillion.
For more detail, you can Bing it: http://www.bing.com/search?q=ipv6
Kevin Boske- Program Manager, Bing
Dominique Swain Jamie Chung Alicia Witt Radha Mitchell Melissa Rycroft
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