This is our biggest issue ever of 6Sense, as we head into our biggest US IPv6 Summit ever. We honor and thank you, as a wonderful IPv6 community member, for reading, attending, speaking and writing to help share the knowledge. In this issue we have valuable contributions from the US Navy’s SPAWAR, v6 Transition, Agilent, NTT, Anagran (Larry Roberts is about to change the world again, and it starts with this article), Foundry, Eracent and SRI. Read this issue, and you will know that IPv6 is not just a protocol, it’s an arena for the smartest companies and agencies to differentiate themselves.

We are just a few days away from the US IPv6 Summit 2005, and attendance and sponsorship are both at record pace for the US. Some 85 people signed up today alone! This IPv6 Summit is, to the best of our knowledge, the largest paid attendance IPv6-focused event in the world. Even more remarkable is that this is the fourth successful large IPv6 event held in the same metropolitan area in a 24-month period, something only achieved before in Tokyo, a megalopolis about 10 times the size of the greater Washington, DC area.

We urge you to register and attend the US IPv6 Summit for several good reasons:

1. You will hear, and meet, if you're not shy, 50 of the most important people in and around IPv6, who will speak on all aspects of IPv6 and answer any questions you can imagine, if answers exist.
2. You will see and be able to discuss IPv6 products and services and come back to the office as an expert in what's going to be available, when, from whom, for how much. Just seeing IPv6 on Microsoft Vista and talking about it with MS's top IPv6 people is worth attending, because Vista will create thousands of new applications and billions of dollars in revenue, and you'll get up to speed a full year before the rest of the U.S.
3. You will experience the US government coming together and turning itself from a 98-pound weakling on IPv6 into Charles Atlas, as some of the most powerful people in the most powerful government explain how IPv6 will touch everything, and will knit everything together. What could be more enjoyable than seeing behind-the-scenes to learn how the greatest enterprise in human history becomes more self-aware, self-organized and ever smarter?
4. You will be able to buy, sell, borrow, loan or swap with the key decision makers in the New Internet. Even if you don't have a budget you can still swap stories and team up to share information.
5. You have a better chance of meeting and speaking with a reporter who can help make you (more) famous than staying in your office.
6. You will be able to create or increase the size of your knowledge base and files on IPv6, making you the "go to" person as IPv6 goes from novelty to mainstream.
7. You will increase your marketability as the IPv6 economy revs up, because you will know more people who will know that you keep up to speed.
8. You increase your chances of coming up with something novel that you and your team can bring to market or implement in your agency.

If you need any other reasons, feel free to call me and tell me what you are interested in, at 310-393-4357.

Respectfully,

Alex Lightman
Publisher, 6Sense Newsletter

The advent of FORCEnet (Fn), along with the Global Information Grid (GIG) architecture and Network Centric Warfare (NCW) concepts of operations, demonstrates a definitive push to an enhanced Internet Protocol (IP) based network capability. As part of the IT-21 and FORCEnet initiative, the Navy began moving to an IP based network in the mid-'90s as the primary method to connect the fleet with the ashore DoD infrastructure, basically extending the evolving NIPRNET, SIPRNET and JWICS capabilities out to the fleet.

IPv6 is an enabling technology that supports network-centric operations and warfare, which will include mobile platforms, networked sensors, unmanned systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, space systems and reach-back to logistics bases, facilities, people and information.

The Naval Transformation Roadmap describes a transformational process that focuses on accelerating the speed and accuracy of information gathering and sharing, assessment, decision and action at every level of command. The Roadmap also identifies FORCEnet as the integral Naval component of Global Information Grid (GIG). FORCEnet (Fn) is the operational construct and architectural framework for Naval Warfare in the Information Age which integrates warriors, sensors, networks, command and control, platforms and weapons into a networked, distributed combat force, scalable across the spectrum of conflict from seabed to space and sea to land.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) developed the next-generation Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) to overcome fundamental limitations of IPv4 by expanding available address space, improving routing support, enhancing end-to-end security, providing new enhancements to quality of service and easing the burdens of system administration. Both the DoD and the U.S. Federal Government have mandated a transition to "IPv6 Capable" networks by 2008.

The "core" standards for all IPv6 devices are well proven and understood. These standards are generally defined as the IPv6 Protocol Specification [RFC 2460], Neighbor Discovery for IPv6 [RFC 2461], IPv6 Stateless Address Auto-configuration [RFC 2462], Internet Control Message Protocol for IPv6 (ICMPv6) [RFC 2463], and Path Maximum Transmission Unit Discovery [RFC 1981], which are all well enough understood that they are being promoted to "Internet standards" by the IETF. The application of other IPv6-related standards is less clear.

Without clear guidance, it has been difficult to establish and implement effective "IPv6 Capable" product standards, a condition that impacts consumers such as the DoD and other US Federal agencies that require formal specifications in their acquisitions process. A DoD Program Manager (PM) often specifies system and component requirements several years before a custom system is built, accepted, and fielded. If incorrect or incomplete requirements are used, it is usually difficult and expensive to correct later in the acquisitions cycle.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Over the past three decades, the development and use of packet networks based on the Internet Protocol (IP) has spawned one of the greatest revolutions in communications the world has ever seen in the advent of the Internet. It is now possible to share information with anyone, anywhere in the world almost instantly. The benefits of IP are so great, a preponderance of organizations are moving toward Convergence, also called Everything over IP (EoIP), where all voice, video and data communication would occur over IP-based networks. Unfortunately, the existing protocol supporting the Internet, IPv4, was not designed to handle the unpredictable and overwhelming growth that has occurred with the Internet or many of the advanced capabilities required to support EoIP. Many advances have been made with IPv4 to provide the scalability needed over the past decade to keep up with growth on the Internet; however, the trade-off has been significant with the erosion of ubiquity, loss of end-to-end connectivity and substantial increase in complexity.

The problems surrounding IPv4 were recognized early on and, in the mid-1990s, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an international body that develops the majority of standards associated with the Internet, agreed upon IPv6 as the basis for the next generation or New Internet. IPv6 not only provided a solution to the limited address space within IPv4, it also provided many advanced capabilities for functionality such as Quality of Service (QoS), security, mobility, auto-configuration and extension headers. IPv6 was designed to provide greater performance with a much simpler overall configuration. IPv6 could not provide the advances that were necessary and remain directly interoperable with IPv4 without transition mechanisms; therefore, transitioning to IPv6 must be accomplished through a careful planning process to prevent operational impacts during periods when IPv4 and IPv6 coexist on a network.

The transition to IPv6 is not just associated with one application or a specific network element; it is a complete technology transition that will impact every Information Technology (IT) based system within the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA). Every piece of hardware and any application that utilizes the network today or in the future will need to be included in the transition planning activities. IPv6 will provide the foundation necessary to deliver advanced network centric services and solutions for a wide variety of applications and provide the necessary infrastructure to support EoIP.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Reduce complexities, streamline management and expedite the adoption of next generation network technology.

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This white paper addresses how to:

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READ WHITE PAPER [PDF 184k]

Most of our attendees are from Northern Virginia, so I’d like to thank you as a group, and get you thinking about your collective might and how much you can accomplish if you get your Congressional delegation out in front on IPv6. Just write and ask them to lead on IPv6. They can and will.

I think Northern Virginia (where I grew up) will end up being the regional center for US IPv6 as a result of five factors:

1. The highest per capita IPv6 event attendance of any metro area on Earth: a 2,000 man-day edge in exposure to the leading IPv6 information.
2. The largest concentration of teams with IPv6 transition contracts in the US, including v6 Transition, SI International, Lockheed Martin, MITRE and Booz Allen.
3. The legacy of US government leadership when new protocols come onto the scene, backed by $2.6 trillion/year in federal spending, with $65 billion in federal IT spending and, out of that, $25 billion/year in Dept. of Defense IT spending, of which Virginia gets a large part.
4. The DoD and OMB mandates for IPv6, with all leadership in DC, Virginia and nearby Maryland.
5. Congressional leadership by Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), who chaired the only hearings by a legislative body on IPv6 leadership in the US.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

In this article, I will be discussing some of the basic issues I encountered in actually integrating IPv6 into an existing small enterprise. While the specifics of this work may not be applicable to your enterprise, the steps involved are ones you should consider when auditing IPv6 to your existing IPv4 network.

The Existing Network

It's important before doing any addition to any network to understand the current state of that network and how it is used. There are many structured methodologies available for doing this type of assessment, but the purposes of this article; I will use a basic inventory and a short narrative to describe the current network. For small networks (like this one), that is probably adequate. For larger networks (particularly multi-site ones), this process will likely have to be more elaborate.

The network is based around Ethernet hubs in a hierarchical tree. The network has no branches that cross-connect to each other so there is no need for the use of spanning-tree to prevent loops. Hosts are connected to the hubs using category 5, 5a or 6 cables and run at speeds between 10 and 1000Mb/sec depending on the capabilities of the host and the hub port. All these hosts fit in one IPv4 /24, so no IPv4 subnetting is used and there are no NATs in this network.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE [PDF 68k]

The need to convert our networks to IPv6 has been made quite obvious; we need the address space and the security. However, the issue is how to convert without a very large replacement expense. Given the need to rebuild, perhaps the basic structure of the network should be re-examined in light of current technology to substantially reduce the network cost. A revolutionary design would be to use an all-optical core with the edge based on flow routers. Not only will the cost be vastly reduced but also the network will much more effectively support video, voice and high-speed data.

At the same time that we are faced with the need to replace our current IPv4 network with an IPv6 network, two revolutionary advances in network technology have been taking place; optical switching and flow routing. Both are substantially less expensive than the current technology, the packet routers that I introduced in 1969.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

As service providers and enterprises add IPv6 applications to their networks, it is imperative that the networks be designed and built to efficiently support the simultaneous use of both IPv4 and IPv6. To support this, Foundry Networks has developed a set of dual protocol networking solutions that have been designed with embedded support for the high-speed switching and routing of IPv4 and IPv6 traffic, as well as the IPv6 transition mechanisms that have become popular in the industry.

In addition, two pieces that are frequently overlooked in the design of dual-protocol networks, security and management have been embedded in Foundry's IPv6 networking solutions. The first is a set of extensions to provide IPv6 aware VLANs and access control lists. The second is a high-speed implementation of the sFlow RFC. This article discusses the features necessary to provide highly functional, dual-protocol networks that provide instrumentation for network-wide visibility and extended support for security.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

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.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

IPv6 is the next generation of network addressing and will replace the current IPv4 standard, creating a need for a full transition from one technology to the next. It is designed to operate on both high performance and low bandwidth networks and provides a platform for new internet functionality. The IPv6 transition anticipates that user host systems can be upgraded to IPv6, and that network operators can deploy IPv6 in routers, with nominal coordination between the two.

However, one critical task that must be addressed in either case is accurately discovering, identifying and inventorying all the devices across the network that will need to be upgraded or replaced as a result of the IPv6 implementation. An automated system that can provide critical configuration information, along with the address of each device on the network, will be an essential tool to effect a successful transition. Eracent's Network Probe can provide management and technical personnel with the critical information they will need to budget and implement a seamless transition from IPv4 to IPv6.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Red Herring Fall 2005 will explore Red Herring's Top 10 Trends for 2006 and feature presentations from the Red Herring Small Cap 100.

Explore our Top 10 Trends for 2006 with leading analysts and Red Herring journalists. Hear untold stories of remarkable growth, amazing turnarounds, and surprising innovation from the Red Herring Small Cap 100. Meet the executives that make it happen.

To request a registration package and for further information, please visit http://www.herringevents.com.

IPv6 Summit, Inc., organizers of the US IPv6 Summits for the last three years and publishers of 6Sense, now offers a wide range of training, consulting and implementation support services to make the transition to IPv6 a reality for your organization. We have assembled a team of IPv6 experts and partners into v6 Transition, providing a complete set of solutions to your meet your IPv6 transition planning and implementation requirements.

MORE INFO

Publisher's Intro

Navy IPv6 Transition
Mark Evans
SPAWAR

DoD Acquisitions Guidance for
IPv6 Products
David Green
SRI International

The IPv6 Best Practices World
Report: A Guide for Federal Agencies Transitioning to IPv6
Dale Geesey
v6 Transition

The Challenges of Next Generation IP Address Management
Lucent Technologies

Northern Virginia Shows Technology Leadership With IPv6
Alex Lightman
Innofone, Inc.

Integrating IPv6 Into Existing Small Enterprise
Stan O. Barber
NTT Communications

IPv6 with an Optical Core
Dr. Lawrence G. Roberts
Anagran

Enterprise & Service Provider Solutions for Merged IPv4/IPv6 Network Services
Foundry Networks

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

Using IT Asset Management Technology to Ease the Transition to IPv6
Ed Cartier
Eracent

Red Herring Fall, December 13-15, 2005 in San Francisco

v6 Transition Now Offers IPv6 Transition Services

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