The IPv6 Juggernaut is Beginning to Move
by K. Arvind, Ph.D.
Architect/Consulting Engineer Office of the CTO, Enterasys Networks

In an article that appeared in 6Sense a few months ago, I attempted to read the temperature of the IPv6 community, and concluded that IPv6 deployment did not lack momentum, though speed was not readily visible. The United States IPv6 Summit held at Reston, VA, in December, provided a good vantage point to observe and gather a perspective on where IPv6 has been headed since. Based on impressions gathered at this Summit, and general happenings in the IPv6 world, it appears that the IPv6 Juggernaut is now beginning to move!

STRONG MIND SHARE
The December 2005 United States IPv6 Summit attracted about 671 attendees from a variety of different sectors including the armed forces, various government agencies, industry, academia and some foreign nations including Japan and Taiwan. The conference drew speakers from the highest ranks of the US government, armed forces, business, and technology communities. The speakers included a congressman, a four-star admiral, senior decision makers from the US Department of Defense and civilian agencies, the president of IEEE-USA, the CEO of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, and representatives of prominent businesses in the networking industry. It was clearly evident that IPv6 continues to gain mind share among those who wield considerable influence in shaping the course of things.

LEAD TURNING INTO LIABILITY
Hon. Congressman Tom Davis, who chaired the Congressional Committee hearings on IPv6 a few months ago, expressed continued support for IPv6 deployment in the US. He pointed out once again that governments in Asia have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in IPv6 deployment, while the US has not spent even a fraction of the amount spent by China. He warned that the lead garnered by the US in the original Internet is turning into a liability, leaving the country stuck with a legacy system.

Rep. Davis urged the federal government to stay engaged as the world moves to the next generation IPv6 protocol, and pointed out that strong support from the federal government will result in IPv6 being accepted as a technology that is trusted and legitimate. He indicated that the issues of funding the federal government IPv6 transition and the need for a dedicated transition office are currently being looked at, and observed that IPv6 deployment is starting slowly to move in the right direction and this will continue.

MUCH WATER HAS FLOWED DOWN THE POTOMAC
Much water seems to have flowed down the Potomac in the last couple of quarters. The Congressional Committee hearings on IPv6, and the Office of Management and Budget memorandum to Federal Agency CIO's mandating the implementation of IPv6 in the backbones of Federal Agency networks, seem to have spurred a lot of interest and activity relating to IPv6 in civilian federal government circles, as evidenced by the noticeable level of participation and presence of civilian federal government officials at the Summit. The feelings relating to IPv6 ranged from curiosity and excitement about the new technology, to mistrust and downright rejection. For example, in one discussion, a senior representative from the Department of Interior saw possibilities in using the large IPv6 address space in earthquake and forest fire management applications, while an IRS representative was seriously concerned about security issues that might result from the IPv6 transition. However, there was clear evidence of commitment to transitioning to IPv6 at the highest levels of decision-making.

Glenn Schlarman, Chief of the Information Policy and Technology Branch, at the Office of the Management and Budget (OMB), delivered a keynote speech on the federal government transition to IPv6. In his speech, he reaffirmed the target date of June 2008, and noted that the intent of compressing the transition period was to have the breadth of government involved and have the industry take the plunge. He, however, acknowledged that not all agencies may meet this date, and warned that those that don't will be at a disadvantage. He characterized the transition to IPv6, from the OMB's perspective, as something that is about planning and preparing, and managing the challenges generated by a spiral process.

THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES
The federal government agencies seem to be serious about the IPv6 transition, and are taking serious steps in this direction. The Office of Management and Budget memo issued in August 2005 provides guidance for what actions need to be taken and when. An underlying reality, however, is that the IPv6 transition mandate is unfunded. The expectation is that the natural technology refresh process based on existing budgets will bring in IPv6 capability into the network automatically. However, this ignores the unbudgeted costs involved in training and personnel necessary to adopt the new technology, which some experts believe will constitute the major costs in the transition. Some panelists highlighted well known instances of federally mandated projects like GOSIP and the adoption of the metric system that failed because they were not funded, and vehemently called for the transition to be funded.

However, concerns about the reality of global competition and its potential effects on United States leadership in technology seem to be prevalent at the highest levels of the government. Congressman Davis pointed out that a new international system based on globalization has replaced the old system that was based on cold war politics. He noted that the US needs to be prepared to compete in today's global economy, and expressed the hope that the US will not end up facing technological barriers while eliminating trade barriers. Some speakers pointed out how adoption of IPv6 in the US can create significant employment opportunities and revenue, with estimates of the potential impact of IPv6 being in the trillion dollar level. Hopefully the Emperor will get real robes soon!

IPv6 LEADERSHIP IS OUR DESTINY
The US Department of Defense (DoD) reasserted its strong commitment to IPv6, while requesting more input and integrated solutions from the industry.

Admiral Giambastiani, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asserted that the DoD is going to be a leader in implementing IPv6. He characterized such leadership as "our destiny." After all, the evolution from ARPAnet to IPv6 is a "family affair" in some way. He identified IPv6 as an essential enabler of net-centricity, and whose capabilities are exciting and critical from a joint war fighter perspective.

Major General Dennis Moran threw a challenge at the industry when he asked system integrators to bring the business case for IPv6. He pointed out that there is no debate about the technical capabilities of IPv6. The debate is about where to deploy the capabilities, and the challenge is how to do it rationally on the scale of a complex and huge weapon system. It seems the DoD is looking to the industry to provide innovative and integrated solutions that utilize IPv6, rather than just provide components that will be absorbed by the DoD into its own internally designed systems.

Dr. Linton Wells, the DoD CIO, reaffirmed that IPv6 is critical for the DoD's vision of net-centricity, and IPv4 won't meet the requirements. He outlined the progress made by the DoD in its IPv6 transition. The transition still appears to be in the advanced planning phase, with some early pilot implementations and ongoing testing and evaluation. A target date of January 2006 has been set for establishing IPv6 implementation schedules and strategies, and for developing an IPv6 master test plan. The DoD transition plan includes a series of milestones ("Milestone Objectives MOx") that will ensure that IPv6 capability is turned on in the DoD networks in a carefully controlled manner. Isolated enclaves can turn on IPv6 capability at MO1 while IPv6 enclaves can be interconnected at MO2 At MO3 the core network infrastructure will support IPv6 and provide parity to IPv4. Enclave pilot operations (MO1) were authorized starting in October 2005.

VENDORS GAINING TRACTION
Vendors seem to be gaining more market traction with IPv6. Juniper Networks recently announced that they won a big IPv6 deal in China — China's national IPv6 network (China Next Generation Internet — CNGI) will use Juniper's M and T-Series routers. At the Summit, Juniper released the first of a planned series of world reports on "IPv6 Best Practices," titled "A Guide for Federal Agencies Transition to IPv6." This is in contrast to a study released by Juniper a few months ago in which they reported low levels of interest in IPv6.

Cisco reports seeing an increase of IPv6 activities in worldwide national research networks, service providers around the world, mobile service providers in the US and other regions, the US DoD and various government and federal agencies.

At the Coalition IPv6 Summit held six months ago, Microsoft had announced that the upcoming Windows Longhorn (since renamed Windows Vista) will use IPv6 as the preferred transport, raising the intriguing possibility that Vista might do to IPv6 in 2006, what Windows 95 did to IPv4 in 1995. At the December 2005 Summit, Microsoft was distributing bumper stickers that read "IPv6 is ready … are you?" Microsoft seems to be getting ready for IPv6. It has a roadmap for IPv6 support in its Vista client and Longhorn server products over the next 2 years, and is leading the way with IPv6 deployment by enabling IPv6 in its worldwide enterprise network. Microsoft's Teredo technology will automatically enable home PCs running Windows Vista to talk IPv6 out of the box, even if the ISP does not provide IPv6 services. This opens the door to peer-to-peer applications, which could herald the large scale adoption of IPv6.

THE SKY IS REALLY FALLING
An article that appeared in Cisco's Internet Protocol Journal (also see Forecasting when IPv4 addresses will run out) recently questioned a widely used prediction model that was used to predict the time frame of exhaustion of the IPv4 address space, and significantly advanced the time frame using a revised model. The original model predicted that IANA's pool of unallocated addresses would run out in 2021, and that of the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) in 2022. The Cisco article predicts an exhaustion timeframe that could be anywhere between 2009 and 2016 for IANA's pool of unallocated addresses. The original model has subsequently been modified, with revised exhaustion timeframes of 2012 (IANA) and 2013 (RIRs).

IPv4 seems to be running out of gas faster than anticipated. The problem of IPv4 address space exhaustion is beginning to appear as a real problem looming in the visible horizon, rather than as Chicken Little's fears. This should lead to a greater sense of urgency being associated with IPv6 adoption.

ROARING TIGERS AND SOARING DRAGONS
Two of the fastest growing economies in the world are making forward moves with respect to IPv6.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently issued draft recommendations that will stimulate the adoption of IPv6 in India. The recommendations mandate the usage of IPv6 in India's e-Governance projects, and the requirement of IPv6-compatibility in Government of India procurements. TRAI has also recommended that the government upgrade existing national test beds to support IPv6, and fund the establishment of new IPv6 test beds.

The 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing is expected to serve as a showcase of China's prowess in various areas. The Chinese government apparently intends to make 3G mobile services available in time for the Olympics, and is also keenly interested in building up IPv6 capabilities to enable these 3G services (high quality voice and video). The China Next Generation Internet (CNGI), a national IPv6 platform that covers 20 cities and 39 GigaPOPs, is being built to support this goal.

THE ASIAN SPUTNIK
Dr. Gerald Alphonse, the President of IEEE-USA, delivered an excellent keynote speech at the Summit, titled, "IPv6, Innovation, and the Standards Process," in which he expressed strong support for IPv6. He wondered if the widespread adoption of IPv6 by Asian countries might generate a "Sputnik" effect to wake America up and generate a national will to act and preserve the USA’s science and technology leadership, in today’s competitive and globalized world. He expressed disappointment that IPv6 has not been identified as an innovation opportunity of national significance in the US, and noted that while the OMB directive on federal government transition to IPv6 is a signal of commitment, it is not the same as a national vision or mission for the US similar to what Japan, China, and Korea have in place.

WHERE ARE THE KILLER APPS?
The Summit featured a high quality video broadcast demo on a big screen by a company called VisualLink. The picture at 30 fps and 360 horizontal lines seemed comparable to what one would see on a traditional broadcast medium. The video feed apparently used IPv6 multicast and was carried over Global Crossing's IPv6 network, and actually followed a route that took it all the way to Japan and back (since the peering point to hand off the feed to Global Crossing is located in Japan). The demo suggested that IPv6TV could be one of the killer apps driving the adoption of IPv6. Incidentally, the President of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was a keynote speaker at the Summit, which indicates that awareness and support for IPv6 is spreading into the media industry.

Peer-to-peer applications that run over IPv6 should start arriving after Windows Vista takes hold next year. If Skype, Yahoo, Google, or Microsoft starts exploiting the true peer-to-peer capabilities of IPv6 in their Instant Messenger applications, IPv6 will quickly get catapulted into the general public's awareness.

The Japanese government is rolling out field trials of a number of M2M (machine-to-machine) applications ranging from web cameras, disaster prevention, and environmental rehabilitation.

The underground hacker community is already armed with a number of IPv6-specific tools such as relay6, 6tunnel, nt6tunnel, asybo, 6to4DDOS, halscan6 and netcat6. IPv6 patches are apparently available for many trojans, backdoors and zombies. These offerings from the hacker community will perhaps be the first "killer" applications in a literal sense – they can kill IPv6 networks and the IPv4 networks used to tunnel IPv6. Products to counter these "killers" will be another set of important early IPv6 applications.

CONCLUSION: THE JUGGERNAUT IS BEGINNING TO MOVE
IPv6 continues to be perceived as a critical technology that the US will need to adopt to maintain leadership in technology. The US Department of Defense is convinced that IPv4 does not have what is needed to enable net-centric warfare, and seems to be strongly committed to IPv6. The DoD seems to be in advanced stages of planning, and is marching steadily toward gradual deployment of IPv6 in a controlled manner. The Congressional hearing on IPv6 and the OMB memo setting a 2008 target date for IPv6 transition has stimulated IPv6-related activity in the civilian agencies. The transition strategy that relies on the natural technology refresh cycle without any additional budgetary allocations has however raised some concerns.

Other stimulants for IPv6 deployment include the downwardly revised prediction for the remaining lifetime of the IPv4 address space, the widespread automatic deployment of IPv6 capability in desktops when Windows Vista is released next year, and the commitment to IPv6 that is emerging in other countries. Prominent organizations such as the IEEE and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences are beginning to take notice of IPv6 and see its importance. Vendors are beginning to smell money and see near-term market opportunities in IPv6. There is visible forward movement. The wheels of the IPv6 Juggernaut are beginning to turn.

Dr. K. Arvind received his PhD and Masters in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his B.Tech in Electronics Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. In addition to active involvement in software R & D, he has published technical papers, participated in standards efforts, and spoken at a number of conferences. He has served in various companies in the Networking industry, including Digital Equipment Corporation, 3Com, and Tenor Networks. He currently serves as an Architect/Consulting Engineer in the Office of the CTO at Enterasys Networks, Andover, MA, and can be reached at karvind@enterasys.com.