ICANN | IPv6 Address Added for Root Servers in the Root Zone
By Ken Mitchell
The ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has added IPv6 addresses for 6 of the 13 root name servers (A, F, H, J, K, and M).
ICANN is the agency responsible for assigning domain names and public IP addresses, though it usually delegates these functions to other organizations. It ensures that each identifier handed out is unique. ICANN is an international non-profit organization.
In 2007, ICANN decided that it should move forward with the first steps of the migration to IPv6. Prior to the change yesterday, users had to retain the IPv4 address scheme in order to use domain names. “The ISP community welcomes this development as part of the continuing evolution of the public Internet,” said Tony Holmes, chair of ICANN’s Internet Service and Connectivity Provider Constituency. “IPv6 will be an essential part our future and support in the root servers is essential to the growth, stability, and reliability of the public Internet.”
From ICANN:
As more and more devices connect to the Internet they require unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. The remaining free pool of unassigned IPv4 addresses is being depleted by the growth of the Internet. IPv6 is the addressing protocol that increases the unique IP addresses from the 4 billion available in IPv4, to more than 340 trillion trillion trillion.
I suspect that if testing goes well with this, the ICANN will make the change in the remaining root servers. I think that this is probably one of the biggest step in the migration of the internet to IPv6.
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