World IPv6 Day: Working Together Towards a New Internet Protocol

We’re pleased to announce that Cisco is joining The Internet Society for World IPv6 Day, a 24-hour global “test drive” of IPv6 on June 8, 2011.

For over 25 years, Cisco has been central to the development of the Internet Protocol (IP) that has helped fuel the incredible growth in global connectivity the world enjoys today. Very soon, the free pool of IPv4 addresses will finally run dry, and IPv6 is the only long-term solution the industry has available to continue growth in the manner that the world has come to expect.

Cisco has been involved in developing standards and products for IPv6 since its inception more than a decade ago. While we have helped a number of customers deploy IPv6 on networks large and small, stitching this together ubiquitously and seamlessly among not just the networks themselves but the software and applications running on top has been challenging.

On June 8, the industry is coming together to deploy and test IPv6 in what we believe will be an unprecedented manner in terms of participation and scale. On this day, major web companies, Internet Service Providers, enterprises, and equipment vendors will work together to “switch on” IPv6 for 24 hours. The switch that will be thrown is one within the global Domain Name System, or DNS, which translates a name such as http://www.cisco.com into an IP address. Today, while a number of large websites have IPv6 connectivity, in order to reach many of them over IPv6 the user must use a special DNS name. For example, even if you have an IPv6-enabled device connected to an IPv6-enabled network, you must type http://www.ipv6.cisco.com in your web browser in order to receive an IPv6 destination address to connect to.

On World IPv6 Day, we will advertise both an IPv4 and IPv6 address in the DNS for http://www.cisco.com for 24 hours along with the rest of the World IPv6 day participants. This will allow devices that have IPv6 connectivity to use it without requiring the user to type a special name, while those that do not have IPv6 will continue to reach our site as they always have over IPv4. Most major operating systems sold today have IPv6 capability built-in, but may not be configured to use IPv6 properly or may not be connected to an IPv6-enabled network. Further, those that do have IPv4 and IPv6 configured but have latent IPv6 connectivity problems can face noticeable delays due to the logic that these computers, tablets, and phones use when deciding whether to use IPv4 or IPv6. One of the very important goals of this experiment is to help the industry measure, work through, and put to rest a number of these types of issues.

In the coming months, Cisco will be working with our development teams, Cisco Services teams, and customers to ensure that this global experiment meets its objectives with the least amount of disruption possible to Internet users worldwide. We’ll be writing more soon about how World IPv6 Day might impact you, and what you can do to prepare for it.

IPv4 has served us remarkably well for the past 30 years.  Moving to a new version will not be easy, but it is essential to the continued growth of the Internet we have come to depend upon.

Tags: Cisco, internet protocol, Internet Society, ip, ipv4, IPv6, World IPv6 Day

Secure, Reliable and Seamless Shouldn’t Be a Luxury

I had the luxury of keynoting at a seminar last week on the topic of “Borderless Luxury.”  Yes, you heard right.  Borderless Luxury.

Being borderless is about connecting to information anytime on any device, from anywhere. And, as I’ve explained here before, doing so securely, reliably, and seamlessly. So what does that have to do with the high-end retail world? The retail luxury sector has watched as the internet has moved from being a single channel of information to a multi-channel of commerce, client services, social media and multi- media communications along with virtual and augmented reality.  Is there a way to bring all stakeholders together to have access to critical information on the network in a secure and reliable way?  How can companies meet the newly enacted PCI regulations with a seamless, secure infrastructure?

Today’s luxury brands are discovering that they need to evolve to cater to both online and on-premises customers. And in the process, they are tackling some provocative issues.  As an avid shopper, in the ether and on the ground, I was thrilled to lead this discussion as the CEOs and CIOs from the top luxury retail brands of the world gathered for the annual e-Luxe Club Breakfast seminar in Paris.  The top takeaway was that being Borderless and having a strategic and robust network architecture to support the business is a key imperative to address the future of luxury shopping from anywhere, any device.

Retailers and brands must identify fresh ways to differentiate themselves through technological innovation. One video that recently caught my eye was the Tiffany video, Blue is the Color of Dreams, a 4-D extravaganza to celebrate the opening of its Beijing store. Certainly that’s an arresting use of technology, but beyond that, we need to also look at new ways to change the way customers experience the shopping process and their relationships with the brands, themselves.

To see what some are doing, check out this article on The Next Web. As for my predictions of what we can expect even further down the road? I’m certain the luxury brands will be finding even newer ways to deliver that je-ne-sais-quoi ?-la-mode experience—sans borders.

 

Valentine's Day in America

• Valentine's Day in America is a special day to be a greeting card and candy roses dinner memorable three-quarters of Americans celebrate a special occasion this is not how to do it one way. Which are all extremely extensively. Bush on February 14 Americans send greeting cards to each and 160 million cards acquired The chocolate is worth 40,000 million baht and buy a rose 130 million flower Americans a number of selected enjoying dinner quietly at home but 3 out of 4 hits eating out in this special night.

Not only loved each other only to celebrate Valentine's Day. Mark Hall Company. Brand and greeting card manufacturers reported that within 2-3 years this sales card to send to friends and relatives rose to record. The network credits the family life that Chan commented. Phenomenon is very gratifying. "Valentine's Day Valentine's Day is not the only young. But the opportunity that we should show love to a person close to underline that they Are always important to us. "