You've probably read some panic-inducing articles about the fact that the Internet is running out of IP addresses! [...] We're providing this new support in order to allow you to test your systems on World IPv6 day (June 8, 2011).
While any support for IPv6 is nice, I really wish that Amazon could have left out the sarcasm. Developers have been working for years on what they had the foresight to see as a very serious problem. (Itojun painfully comes to mind.) I find it demeaning to start out the announcement by attacking a straw-man.
I think this is a great first step for AWS on the road to v6 support, but the attitude plus implying that this is useful to "test" systems on World IPv6 day -- as if it's just a trophy game -- is not confidence inspiring.
Don't read too much into that. They did not say anything about the engineers. They talked about the articles - a good part of which is indeed panic-inducing. Which is probably a good thing in itself - else it's hard to get people moving.
And as you say - it's a great first step, a result. And it's results that matter. So, let's toast for the universal deployment of IPv6! And DNSSEC! :-)
And IPv6 day is mostly not about getting everything onto IPv6. It's mainly about verifying that after lighting up IPv6 on the content side not too many eyeballs fall off the IPv4 truck due to unrelated brokenness (or that we can catch a significant portion of them).
World IPv6 day is exactly a trophy game. The trophy is "no more fear of IPv6". A pretty damn good trophy in my book. Let's all go get it.
Given that this was meant for technical audiences who already know what IPv6 is, referring to "panic-inducing" media coverage(!) seems facetious. It's strange syntax if you take something seriously.
This could just be my read on it, if others disagree, that's fine too. There are plenty of other interesting things to discuss in this announcement.
While any support for IPv6 is nice, I really wish that Amazon could have left out the sarcasm. Developers have been working for years on what they had the foresight to see as a very serious problem. (Itojun painfully comes to mind.) I find it demeaning to start out the announcement by attacking a straw-man.
I think this is a great first step for AWS on the road to v6 support, but the attitude plus implying that this is useful to "test" systems on World IPv6 day -- as if it's just a trophy game -- is not confidence inspiring.