The Google over IPv6 program allows ISPs with good connectivity to request IPv6 access for most Google services. In about a week, we’ll be adding Google App Engine and the appspot.com domain to this program. This means that all App Engine apps will become accessible over IPv6 to anyone participating in the program!

For most people, this won’t require any changes to your code at all. If your App Engine code reads os.environ["REMOTE_ADDR"] in Python, or HttpServletRequest.getRemoteAddr() in Java, be aware that this value may be an IPv4 address, like “192.0.2.1″, or an IPv6 address, like “2001:db8::1″. Now is the time to verify that your code doesn’t make any IPv4-specific assumptions, so that your IPv6-ready users will have a seamless transition.

More info on http://googleappengine.blogspot.com

IPv6 Query is one of the very first iPhone applications that can resolve IPv6 Addresses. Because the high level iPhone SDK classes provided by Apple do not support IP version 6, they can not resolve host names. IPv6 Quert uses C to resolve DNS instead of the Cocoa
classes that refuse to return IPv6 addresses.

The app created by infinitycg will let you test host names for IPv6 support and also provides reference material.

The app costs $0.99 in Itunes and can be found under the Utilities categorie

mDNSResponder, used for all DNS queries in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, has a strange behavior when it comes to query DNS records.
It will simultaneously ask for a A and a AAAA record when performing a DNS lookup but will be only using the first response and will reject any further responses with a “port unreachable”.

For example. You are using a dual stack client and want to browse to a dual stack website. The mDNSResponder will send a A and a AAAA request. The DNS server will respond to both queries but the client only uses the responds that it receives first. If for example the A record is received first you will be using a IPv4 connection even though you are dual stacked.

Stuart Cheshire gave a presentation on IPv6 adoption at the IETF 72 Technical Plenary. In that presentation he explains the motivation behind this double query.

Initially, from a end user perspective, it is a nice idea that could have its benefits, but if you look u bit further it has many downsides to it. Some are: Harder to debug on your network. DNS servers get twice as much queries. It will not work when your client is on a IPv6-only network and, even more troubling, if you only have a AAAA record the responds to the A record request will result in a NXDOMAIN and the client thinks the domain doesn’t exist.

So be aware of this behavior when working with MacOS X 10.6 (and perhaps other Apple products) and keep an eye on the bug report.

A list of the most popular Dutch websites according to Alexa.com. We left out the websites that are not from the Netherlands.

There are 6 websites that are reachable by IPv6. But only 3 are dualstack on the main domainname. These websites are www.geenstijl.nl, www.spitsnieuws.nl and www.spele.nl.

Two of the 3 websites with dualstack IPv6 are hosted by Prolocation that offer IPv6 connectivity by their IPv6 Proxy

We will keep checking the list to see if more websites become reachable by IPv6.

The list:

Website	IPv6 on Domain	IPv6 on Subdomain	URL
hyves.nl
nu.nl
marktplaats.nl
telegraaf.nl			http://www.ipv6.telegraaf.nl
ing.nl
startpagina.nl
nos.nl
rabobank.nl
dumpert.nl
abnamro.nl
bol.com
funda.nl
tweakers.net
rtl.nl
geenstijl.nl			http://www.geenstijl.nl
fok.nl
buienradar.nl			http://www.buienradar.nl/
spele.nl			http://www.spele.nl
tvgids.nl
spitsnieuws.nl			http://www.spitsnieuws.nl
detelefoongids.nl
vi.nl
ad.nl
omroep.nl
nusport.nl
partyflock.nl
volkskrant.nl
upc.nl
web-log.nl
wehkamp.nl
ns.nl
ebay.nl
beslist.nl
kieskeurig.nl
anwb.nl
speurders.nl			http://www.ipv6.speurders.nl
9292ov.nl
uitzendinggemist.nl
voetbalzone.nl
nrc.nl
kpn.com
xs4all.nl			http://www.ipv6.xs4all.nl
knmi.nl
t-mobile.nl
dvhn.nl
belastingdienst.nl
nujij.nl
ah.nl
vodafone.nl

A few hours ago Opera released the final of Opera 10.50. With this release Opera has fixed a big IPv6 problem.
In previous releases the Opera webbrowser unconditionally preferred IPv6 over IPv4, even if the IPv6 connection was for example a Terredo connection. With this new release Opera complies with RFC3484 and only prefers IPv6 if that connection is native.

The effect that this bug had has been made available by Tore Anderson by including 1×1 pixels over dual stack and IPv4-only on a high traffic website located in Norway. In his latest Februari report there is a IPv6 brokenis of 0.094% and if you exclude Opera it’s 0.029%. Reports are available for October, November, December, Januari and Februari.

Some websites, including Google, don’t offer a AAAA DNS record because of this small portion of customers (but many users if you are a large content provider) they would lose when introducing a AAAA record. Instead they offer something like ipv6.domain.com or in the case of Google set up a whitelist program.  Opera, like most browser, offers upgrades without intervention of the user so this new release should be adopted soon by Opera users. Let’s hope this will inspire content providers to include AAAA records without any limitations. The browsers are ready.

Thanks to Tore Anderson for making these reports available.

Four months ago we reported that the AMS-IX achieved 2 Gbps of IPv6 traffic. Since then there hasn’t been much growth of IPv6 traffic at AMS-IX.
The Gemand Internet Exchange (DE-CIX) however has seen a steady increase of IPv6 traffic (as well as IPv4) these last few weeks and as of today broke the 2 Gbps barrier with 2.14 Gbps of IPv6 traffic.

The total peak traffic at DE-CIX today was 1240.4 Gbps of which 2.14 Gbps was IPv6, that is 0.172%. These days the AMS-IX also has 0.172% of IPv6 traffic, this is unfortunately less the the 0.285% we reported back in October 2009.

The Canadian ISP TekSavvy has started a limited IPv6 beta service. Customers can request a /64, or if they are using a router an additional /56. TekSavvy doesn’t provide official support for this services as of yet.

First of all, the service is provided over native PPP, there is no tunneling involved or 6to4 like most other providers.
In order to enroll in this limited beta, you will need to ask in the TekSavvy Direct forum. Please make sure that you give us your current contact information so that we can find your account.

Read more about it in their announcement. To sign-up you must use the TekSavvy Direct forum.

The Europeon Commision has started an research project with TNO and GNKS  to find the causes for a slow IPv6deploymentby looking at bottlenecks and the argument that are used when talking about IPv6 deployment.

On www.ipv6monitoring.eu they will publish their project results and collect the feedback and ideas that you, and others who are concerned with IPv6, are willing to share.

Governments, enterprises, ISPs, etc., use a wide variation of arguments for not deploying IPv6 in their ICT environment. Some of these arguments are purely technological in nature, whilst others deal with business or the availability of products. Also, some of the arguments are based on reality, and others are just perceived by people but may be based on, for example, misunderstanding of IPv6 technology.

Here are a few examples of the arguments they cover which you can discuss about:

01: “I dont gain anything”

“I dont gain anything whit implementing IPv6, it only increases costs”

This argument is related to the (lack of a) IPv6 business case. It is assumed that the introduction of IPv6 will require extra investments. This will in most cases be true: at least someone has to determine the impact of the introduction of IPv6. But the costs can often be minimized by doing IPv6 investments concurrently with the introduction of new network devices and service platforms. As far as revenues are concerned: not be able to deliver IPv6 on time, may lead to missed opportunities, missing potential revenues.

04. “They say NAT will solve the problem, so why change?”

“I hear people say that Network Address Translation (NAT, RFC 2663) will do the trick. In that case I can keep my current addresses and network infrastructure.”

Is NAT cascading, or Carrier Grade NAT (CGN), an alternative for IPv6? NAT does prolong the lifetime of current IPv4 networks, but has issues with accessibility (the end-to-end principle) and scalability (the number of concurrent sessions is limited). CGN will provide a short-term solution for ISPs who are not IPv6-ready on time. However their total amount of investments will increase, since they will have to move towards IPv6 anyway later on.

For more bottlenecks and arguments check out http://www.ipv6monitoring.eu/bottlenecks

Google has started to initiate the enabling of their Youtube site over IPv6.
It is currently available to participants in their Google over IPv6
program, http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/ .

The www.youtube.com user interface so far does *not* have any AAAA
published, but the *much* more important (traffic wise) image and video
servers do.

:~$ host s.ytimg.com
s.ytimg.com is an alias for static.cache.l.google.com.
static.cache.l.google.com has address 74.125.13.213
static.cache.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2001:4860:4001:402::15

:~$ host v1.lscache1.c.youtube.com
v1.lscache1.c.youtube.com is an alias for v1.lscache1.l.google.com.
v1.lscache1.l.google.com has address 74.125.97.80
v1.lscache1.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2001:4860:4001:402::10

Read more about it on the Ripe IPv6 Workgroup mailinglist

Comcast has announced their plans for IPv6 Trials this year:

2Q2010:

Trial #1 will evaluate tunneling IPv6 over IPv4, using “6RD” technology. 6RD is an open Internet standard developed in the IETF’s Softwires working group. This trial enables us to explore how we may be able to provide production level IPv6 service to customers who have only been issued IPv4 addresses by the ISP network.

Trial #2 will evaluate a native Dual-Stack IPv6 deployment. We will test issuing both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to the customer premise. This trial will attempt to suit a variety of customer premise configurations, and will evolve over time as the customer premise equipment (CPE) support for IPv6 matures. Native, dual-stack is central to our IPv6 strategy and we expect that the native dual-stack solution will be a significant part of the IPv6 transition, enabling IPv6 technology to evolve globally while still being able to provide seamless services to the traditional IPv4 Internet.

3Q2010:

Trial #3 will evaluate tunneling IPv4 over IPv6, using “Dual-Stack Lite” technology (aka DS-Lite). DS-Lite is an open standard defined in the IETF’s Softwires working group. DS-Lite will involve provisioning only an IPv6 address at the customer premise, and creating a IPv4 over IPv6 tunnel between the customer’s home gateway and an Address Family Transition Router (AFTR) in our network. That AFTR enables sharing IPv4 addresses among DS-Lite IPv6 customers. DS-Lite can be seen as the mirror image of 6RD; 6RD enables IPv6 service to IPv4 customers, whereas DS-Lite enables IPv4 service to IPv6 customers. DS-Lite offers the ability to continue an IPv4 service when IPv4 addresses are no longer readily available or are otherwise constrained.

Trial #4 will evaluate how to deploy IPv6 to our Business Class customers, on a native Dual-Stack IPv6 basis.

Its good to see that this big ISP has seen the importance of an IPv6 rollout. Lets  that their trials are successful so we can see Comcast connections with native IPv6 very soon!

You can sign up for the trials right here!