The Maturity of IPv6 Leads to Virtual Private Server Web Hosting
Cody Christman
Director of Product Engineering, NTT Communications

In my experience of traveling to various technology seminars and events, I'm always amazed by the misperceptions about the maturity of IPv6. For example, people often ask when IPv6 Internet access will be available, or when IPv6 applications will materialize. This is understandable in many situations, but such questions even arise at the IPv6 Summit events. The exhibition halls are full of vendors displaying commercial IPv6 products and services. NTT Communications (NTT Com) has offered IPv6 services since 2001, when it introduced commercial IPv6 Internet access in Japan. The global roll out of commercial service, now available on four continents - Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America - was completed in 2003. The entire NTT Communications Global IP Network is dual stack IPv4/IPv6. In addition to providing IPv6 access, NTT has always demonstrated applications for IPv6 technology, and this spring's Coalition Summit for IPv6 will not be an exception.

NTT Com is a gold sponsor of the upcoming Coalition Summit for IPv6, continuing a long tradition of sponsoring IPv6 events. At the San Diego Summit in June of 2003, NTT displayed IPv6 cameras, temperature sensors, and robotic control devices located in London, Tokyo, Sydney, and Kuala Lumpur, all of which were accessible over the IPv6 Internet. NTT Com has also demonstrated a number of applications built on top of m2m-x, an open platform to manage end-to-end IPsec encrypted, secure connections between two or more devices on an IPv6 network. These m2m-x applications, displayed at previous IPv6 Summits, include a secure Cyber Conferencing System, Home Security System, and a Private VPN (pVPN) platform. At the upcoming Coalition Summit for IPv6, NTT will be displaying an IPv6 microcontroller-based, embedded systems weather station that can be accessed from a browser on an IPv6 Wi-Fi networked laptop. The weather station itself is simply a prototypical example, and in reality, any number of devices could be networked to the microcontroller, to suit a broad range of applications. For example, it is feasible that the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security may be interested in deploying networked chemical, biological, or radiation sensors. The demonstration not only proves that such configurations are possible, it also illustrates that IPv6 is not a protocol of the future, but is here today and is mature enough to operate flawlessly and cost effectively. The weather station demonstration consists completely of commercial off the shelf (COTS) devices, and the entire contents of the demonstration cost less than $200 to create.

NTT Com is about to make another major announcement for IPv6: An IPv6 compatible, dual-stack Virtual Private Server (VPS) will be available to web hosting customers. Although it is a web hosting platform, VPS's capabilities go well beyond web hosting. VPS is based on FreeBSD and offers a virtual server with root access, giving the end user freedom to manage accounts, create mailboxes, modify sendmail and Apache configuration files - basically almost anything the administrator of a dedicated UNIX server could do. And this VPS provides access to a broad suite of IPv6 web hosting and mail services, as well as a number of other utilities. Dual stack VPS users will have access to IPv6 Apache (including SSL), sendmail, POP, IMAP, SSH, FTP, ping6, and traceroute6. Each server has access to the IPv6 Internet (as well as to the IPv4 Internet) via the NTT Communications Global IP Network. The VPS is perfect for IPv6 aficionados that want a playground to experiment with IPv6. It offers a private UNIX server to write Perl scripts, set up a web presence, test IMAP mail accounts over IPv6, etc. For users that need even more resources, a Managed Private Server (MPS) is also available, which offers the same benefits as the VPS in the form of a dedicated server.

NTT Com will continue to champion and promote IPv6. NTT was the first global ISP to offer commercial IPv6 services in 2001, and now is offering IPv6 enabled VPS web hosting. NTT Com's philosophy is not that IPv6 is an experimental protocol to run on a separate or parallel network. IPv6 is viewed as a natural extension or outgrowth of the current Internet. There are not two separate Internets, rather one network that runs both IPv4 and IPv6, and NTT Com's dual stack global IP backbone and the launch of the dual stack VPS exemplify this point. Nobody could argue that IPv6 has reached the maturity of IPv4 yet, but that level of maturity is right around the corner. Please visit the NTT Com booth at the Coalition Summit for IPv6 to discuss the IPv6 vision and experience some great, hands-on demonstrations. We are looking forward to meeting you.