CloudFlare Celebrates First Birthday by Introducing Easy As Pie IPv6 Transition for Websites

CloudFlare, a company that helps users easily accelerate and secure their websites, celebrated its first birthday today, September 27, 2011. To celebrate its birthday, the company introduced a major new feature - the ability to transition to IPv6 with the flip of a switch (literally). 

To give a short description of IPv4 (current technology) and IPv6 ("Internet of the future"): The IPv4 protocol was developed in the 1970's and was designed to handle 4 billion Internet-connected devices. Believe it or not, that number is close to being reached. Along comes IPv6, which can support 2¹²⁸  devices. Due to major differences with the two protocols, the two are nearly incompatible with each other. This will make things difficult in the coming years as more websites and companies switch to IPv6, but aren't really prepared for the switch. 

CloudFlare attempts to eliminate the problem by allowing anyone who uses the company's technologies to begin using IPv6 on their website. 

At CloudFlare, we realized we were in a unique position to solve this problem. Today we're publicly launching CloudFlare's Automatic IPv6 Gateway. To enable it, visit your CloudFlare Settings page: 

CloudFlare.com > My websites > Settings (pull down menu) > CloudFlare settings 

You can choose two options: [FULL] which will enable IPv6 on all your CloudFlare Enabled subdomains, or [SAFE] which will automatically create specific IPv6-only subdomains (e.g., www.ipv6.yoursite.com). You do not need to change any of your DNS settings. After it is up and running, you can test your IPv6 compatibility and get a badge for your site at: