An image of a user's IPv6 testing scorecard from the Hurricane Electric website
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Colocation hosting and Internet backbone provider Hurricane Electric announced on Friday that to date, its IPv6 certification program has certified 4,000 IPv6 Sages – the highest level of certification offered by the program – in 100 countries.
Hurricane Electric was an early proponent of IPv6 technology, and has been active in evangelizing the protocol since long before it reached its current level of urgency. It began offering the training program in 2011, helping to ease the transition to IPv6 for network administrators, CIOs and other technology operators.
That transition is currently underway, as IPv4 address space is depleted at the highest levels. Many Internet companies are now planning for World IPv6 Day on June 6, 2012. Last year, companies switched their systems entirely over to IPv6 for the whole day. This year, they’re planning to switch permanently over to the new protocol.
Hurricane Electric currently operates the largest IPv6-native Internet backbone in the world, and first deployed the protocol back in 2001. The company says its certification program affirms that students have established IPv6 connectivity, configured IPv6 on web and email servers, configured forward IPv6 DNS, configured reverse IPv6 DNS for email servers, assigned IPv6 addresses to name servers that can respond to IPv6 queries and passed a test of IPv6 concepts.
“We are excited that so many network administrators, corporate CIOs and others worldwide have opted to gain certification at the highest level,” says Mike Leber, Hurricane Electric’s president, quoted in the announcement. “Hurricane Electric is committed to providing not only the best global IPv6 network, but also the tools that enable a smooth transition to IPv6.”
Organizations that delay the transition, says HE, will eventually face connectivity-related issues and possible losses as the rest of the world moves to IPv6.
