Agilent Technologies supports IPv6 transition with new test tools during Moonv6
by John Nakulski and Simon Farrugia
Agilent Technologies

The move from IPv4 to IPv6 will not be a sharp cutover requiring a forklift upgrade to network equipment. Rather, it will be a slow evolution. The U.S. Government, for example, expects that it will be at least 2015 before the majority of systems are running in a native IPv6 environment. To support this goal, this year’s Moonv6 testing focused on the transition from IPv4 to IPv6.

During Moonv6, Agilent Technologies worked with the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) and the University of New Hampshire's Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL) to help major equipment vendors certify that their routers, firewalls, intrusion prevention systems and other network devices are ready for use in Defense and Government networks. Agilent was on hand with test expertise and tools that help manufacturers and network operators verify their readiness for IPv6. Agilent’s IPv6 test solution includes the most comprehensive IPv6 conformance test suite, new VPNv6 and 6PE test capabilities, and an innovative “Application Mix” test plan for ensuring services convergence.

Moonv6 – Agilent Helps Network Equipment Vendors Become IPv6-Ready
The Oct-Nov 2005 phase of Moonv6 included the conformance and performance measurement of routers and the application-layer testing of security devices. The goal was to determine the current state of systems that support IPv6 and, over the longer term, identify a set of standards that a device must support to be considered IPv6-compliant.

The assessment environment consisted of network communications interfaces, network hardware, operating system software and application software configured to provide validation of capabilities including native IPv6, dual stack IPv4/IPv6 operation, and IPv4 over IPv6 tunnels.

Agilent provided N2X test equipment and personnel to support IPv6 conformance testing of routers and end-user devices such as cameras and printers. Testing was supported by Agilent at two Department of Defense sites -— the JITC at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and at the Marine Corp Network Operation Systems Command (MCNOSC) at Quantico, Virginia.

Using the N5557A NetworkTester application test solution, Agilent also participated at the UNH Interoperability Lab to provide support for application-layer testing of Firewalls, IPS/IDSs and IPsec devices.

Throughout this testing, Agilent worked onsite with personnel from the vendors participating in Moonv6. Agilent test equipment and expertise were instrumental in helping vendors facilitate testing, analyze results, and rectify any problems in their IPv6 implementations.

IPv6 Conformance, 6PE and VPNv6 – New and Updated Tests
Agilent continues its commitment to IPv6 with N2X, which now provides IPv6 conformance suites with the most extensive test coverage, including a dedicated test suite for IPv6 security used successfully during Moonv6. Highly flexible traffic generation and powerful routing emulations (OSPFv3, IS-IS and BGP-4+) are now complemented with full support for 6PE and VPNv6 verification, making N2X the most comprehensive IPv6 routing and services test solution available.

IPv6 conformance testing is a critical component of network operator and equipment manufacturer test strategies. Conformance testing ensures the smoothest path to interoperability and reduced time-to-service in multi-vendor networks. Agilent’s N2X IPv6 conformance tests offer a broad coverage of transition mechanism RFCs and a specialized security suite that targets areas such as ESP and keyed MD5 exchange. These tests run within the industry’s most productive conformance test manager, an interactive environment that simplifies protocol troubleshooting and rapid results diagnosis. Test suites are easily extended to enable faster problem isolation.

As enterprises and operators begin to adopt multi-service IPv6 networks, these will need to co-exist with traditional IPv4 and MPLS networks. Co-existence will require IPv6 data packets to be transmitted over existing IP/MPLS networks, using technologies such as VPNv6 and 6PE. To smooth the transition to IPv6, test tools must have the flexibility to simulate and verify the operation of all mixed IPv4 and IPv6 environments.

To learn how N2X’s highly scalable multi-protocol simulation can accelerate your transition to IPv6, please visit http://advanced.comms.agilent.com/n2x/services/ipv6.htm.

Application Mix – Verifying Service Convergence over IPv6
A focus of the Agilent and University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL) Moonv6 test plans is the ability for application-aware security devices to perform with a realistic mix of applications and services over IPv6.

Today’s networks don’t carry raw TCP and UDP test packets. IPv4 networks transport whole transactions sent and received by real, end-user applications. Similarly, evolving IPv6 and mixed IPv4-v6 networks are filled with real application traffic. Most switches and routers do not process IP packets beyond layers 2-4. However, true layer-7 devices such as application-aware firewalls, bandwidth management devices and emerging B-RASs need to filter and forward packets based on the full inspection of packet headers and payloads – right up to the application layer.

Testing layer-7 devices requires test tools such as Agilent’s N5557A NetworkTester application performance test tool. NetworkTester emulates real application clients and servers, enabling generation of whole transactions, to test the filtering and forwarding of protocols such as HTTP, SMTP and H.323. This is critical for security devices that are application-aware – performance of these devices has been shown to suffer by as much as 95% when advanced filtering capabilities are enabled.

Testing each application protocol in isolation is vital but insufficient. Real networks contain multiple protocols, and real devices can suffer from unexpected problems (such as resource contentions) when exposed to high loads from multiple applications at the same time. For this reason, Agilent has developed a new “Application Mix” test methodology that emulates real-world traffic using multiple applications at the same time. For each application protocol, the tester emulates real transactions between clients and servers based on traffic distributions and parameters (such as SMTP or HTTP file sizes or H.323 call durations) modeled from actual network statistics. Transactions from multiple application protocols (such as email, web and VoIP) are combined in proportions based on available data or on expected traffic.

Stressing the system-under-test under realistic conditions, using real IPv4 and IPv6 application clients and servers, is the ultimate performance test for ensuring your readiness for transition to IPv6. Using NetworkTester, Agilent Technologies helped equipment vendors demonstrate that their application-aware security devices are IPv6-ready during Moonv6 testing.

For more information on the IPv6 capabilities of Agilent’s layer 4-7 application performance test solution, please visit http://advanced.comms.agilent.com/networktester/technologies/ipv6/index.htm.