August 18, 2008

Arbor Issues IPv6 Study

Arbor Networks published results of a 12-month research project on global Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) traffic on the Internet.

A provider security and network managements solutions, Arbor worked with more than ninety network services and content providers, covering more than 2,000 routers, nearly 300,000 interfaces and 4 Tbps of inter-domain Internet traffic.

According to Arbor, key finds of the study, include the following:

• IPv6 traffic grew from 50 Mbps during the early fall of 2007 to 150 Mbps during the summer of 2008.
• Aggregate inter-domain IPv6 Internet traffic appears to be increasing.
• IPv6 traffic is still a tiny percentage of overall Internet traffic.
• The proportion of IPv6 vs. IPv4 traffic stayed roughly the same over the last year.

For commentary on the report, visit this lengthy blog entry by Arbor’s Chief Scientist Craig Labovitz, who offers this full disclosure: "I worked on the failed TUBA counter-proposal to IPv6 and still harbor a grudge."