Intro
by
Alex Lightman, Publisher
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The recent Federal Summit for IPv6 was both a successful
event and established another milestone in the history
of IPv6, as the time and place when major government
agencies came out with strong affirmations as to how
and why the federal departments are transitioning
to IPv6. The purpose of this Summit was to provide
a smaller, more focused event in support of the US
Federal Government and its transition to the IPv6
standard, but there was still very strong attendance,
with over 400 participants and dozens of speakers
and panelists. VIP presenters included IT executive
officers of Federal departments, representatives of
the Department of Defense, the Presidents of the Federation
of American Scientists and the IEEE-US (the largest
professional organization in the US), and representatives
of the emergency response community and major Internet
organizations such as OPEN and ARIN.
Hot panels on cybersecurity, emergency response to
Katrina-type events, network configuration and DoD
Transition lessons learned brought both audience involvement
and endless questions, a sure sign of interest and
intent. Several of these topics sparked a lot of interest
from the national Press, which learned that progress
with IPv6 can – quite literally – be a
matter of life and death. The initial report on the
First Internet City in America brought a much needed
topic to the forefront: how and where can we see actual
v6 applications – and how can providers make
a profit on them?
The Tutorial Day on 17 May was SRO, as participants
got insights from experts in two separate tracks,
one on Transition Management, and one on Advanced
Security and Network Technology. Finally, our wonderful
corporate supporters, including Grand Sponsors Juniper
Networks and Spirent Federal Systems, Gold Sponsors
Lucent, NTT, Microsoft, Foundry Networks, Global Crossing
and InfoWeapons, and Silver Sponsors Intelliden, Software
Engineering Services, Digital Presence, Fortinet,
Innofone.com, v6 Transition and Infuse Creative, did
their best to enable attendees to get both an experience
of the latest and greatest in various products and
services and to share experience-based insights on
best practices and how to overcome the challenges
of transitioning to IPv6-capable networks.
We thank all of our great speakers, panelists, sponsors
and attendees for making the Federal Summit for IPv6
a well-attended, content-rich and fruitful event.
In this month’s 6Sense
we have several articles meant to inform and pique
your interest. Dr. Henry Kelly, the President of the
Federation of American Scientists, writes about the
status and needs of the US educational system, and
how advanced technology could make a huge difference
to both learning and competitiveness in our Nation.
The implications for IPv6 – in enabling collaborative
networking, in providing secure end-to-end transactions
and “trusted networks,” and in supporting
the creation of immersive 2D and 3D multimedia environments
– are obvious. Since education may well become
one of the killer apps for IPv6, we laud the participation
of this community in our Summits and 6Sense,
and hope to hear much more from government and academic
training experts in the future.
John Lee, the SVP of Business Development for Internet
Associates, gives us his insights into how to renumber
a large-scale IP network, and how an IP Address Life
Cycle Management Solution can reduce the time and
effort for this essential aspect of a v6 transition
implementation. Dale Geesey, the Vice President of
v6 Transition, writes about one of the hotly debated
topics of our community – the depletion of IPv4
addresses – and suggests a market-based approach
to allocating the remaining address space. One interesting
outcome of such a strategy might be the genesis of
a simple partial ROI calculation for companies: “Should
we buy a block of v4 addresses at price X, or transition
to v6 at price Y?” Lawrence Hughes, the CTO
of InfoWeapons, clues us in on the real history of
the Internet address shell game in “The Dirty
Little Secrets of ISPs,” drawing on both deep
knowledge of the subject and his remarkable talent
for making complex topics comprehensible even to non-techies.
We hope that you enjoy the articles and insights,
and welcome your feedback, both in terms of submitting
articles and your comments on how we can serve our
IPv6 community ever better and more comprehensively.
Respectfully,
Alex Lightman
Publisher, 6Sense Newsletter
CEO, Innofone.com, Inc.
"The largest and fastest growing IPv6 pure-play"
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The Dirty Little Secrets of ISPs
By
Lawrence E. Hughes
Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, InfoWeapons
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One of the main benefits of moving to IPv6 is the
restoration of full end-to-end connectivity, Internet-wide.
In the original Internet, all IP addresses were "static
externally routable" addresses. Any node on the
Internet could connect directly to any other node
on the Internet. All was right with the world. Then
we started running out of addresses, about 10
years ago! I'm going let you in on some of the
dirty little secrets of Internet Service Providers
regarding how they have tried to cope with this reality.
Let's look in more detail at the phrase "static
externally routable addresses."
Private Addresses and NAT
The "externally routable" part of this phrase
refers to the use of "private non-routable"
addresses, as described in RFC 1918 ("Address
Allocation for Private Internets") released February
1996 – I told you this problem has
been around for ten years!). As we started running
out of IPv4 addresses, the authors of this RFC came
up with the idea of setting aside a few special address
ranges (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 and 192.168.0.0/16)
that could be used in anyone's "internal network,"
much like three- or four-digit "extension numbers"
in an office phone system. Say my office phone is
"extension 1234." You can't simply call
that number from anywhere in the US – you must
call one of the company's "real" phone numbers,
then either have a receptionist or machine further
connect you to my extension ("if you know the
person's extension, dial it now").
READ
ENTIRE ARTICLE
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Can a Market-Based IP Allocation
Approach Save IPv4?
By Dale Geesey
Vice President of Consulting, v6 Transition a Division of Innofone.com
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How long will IPv4 addresses be available? That has
been a question asked many times over the past decade
and a half. In the early 1990s, projections within
the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) showed
the imminent depletions of the IPv4 address space
under the current methods of use and allocation. In
response, a two-pronged approach was employed to mitigate
the pending crisis. The first part of the approach
was to delay the complete depletion of the IPv4 address
space. This was accomplished through a combination
of techniques, including the use of more rigorous
address allocation policies and with Network Address
Translation (NAT). While the delay in total IP address
depletion was successful, it was neither intended
to be nor could be the final solution. The second
part of the approach was to develop a replacement
for IPv4 that would provide enough address space to
support Internet growth for the foreseeable future.
The IETF initiated a working group called IP Next
Generation (IPng) that eventually led to the development
and standardization of IPv6 in the mid-1990s.
Although the delay of the IP address depletion has
been successful, over a decade later the industry
is once again debating when IPv4 address depletion
will occur with estimates that the Regional Internet
Registries (RIRs) will run out of IPv4 address space
between 2008 and 2013. That is unless another method
is found to once again extend the life of the IPv4
address space. One approach that has been discussed
in the past and recently reintroduced by a major IT
research and advisory firm is the idea of allowing
market-based approach to IP address allocation.
READ
ENTIRE ARTICLE
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IPv6 and the Future of Learning
By Dr. Henry Kelly
President, Federation of American Scientists
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There's no hiding the challenges facing education
systems in the US. The definition of a "basic
education" keeps expanding, the people needing
educational services are increasingly diverse, and
funds are increasingly tight. Innovation is essential
to meet these challenges and modern information technologies,
powered by IPv6, have a key role to play. These technologies
make it possible to provide more people expertise
in more areas at lower cost – and do it in a
way that is much more personalized, engaging and compatible
with the frantic lifestyles of modern Americans. These
new learning technologies will not emerge under "business
as usual." New public and private institutions
must be invented to exploit them.
Modern international research networks feed on each
other, creating powerful positive feedback that continuously
expands the scope and power of what we know. Modern
engineering converts this knowledge into devices and
systems of staggering complexity. But, this new knowledge
and these new devices and systems are useful only
if the knowledge can be assimilated and properly applied
to address relevant needs.
READ
ENTIRE ARTICLE
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The Planning, Transition, Implementation
And Operation Of A Multi-National IP Network
By
John Lee
SVP Business Development, Internet Associates, LLC.
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This paper describes the author's experiences related
to the architectural changes and renumbering of a
multi-national fiber optic and IP based network that
spanned three continents. While the renumbering was
IPv4 to IPv4, the techniques and experience are directly
applicable to IPv4 to IPv6 transition planning, implementation
and operation. The primary difference in today's environment
is due to the development and use of an IP Address
Life Cycle Management solution and how it reduces
the engineering planning, time and effort. It also
produces graphical views, better records and relational
information for continued operational management of
the network.
Background
With little operational experience in large IPv6 networks,
we rely on relevant experience with existing technologies
that give us a window into the issues at hand such
as Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN) and
large multi-national IPv4 networks. The transition
to ISDN was one of islands of (digital) ISDN that
were originally interconnected by analog transmission
services. BRIs are used to connect Customer Premise
Equipment (CPE) to the network and PRI's are used
to interconnect Wide Area Networks (WAN) and for network
to network connections. For ISDN to be fully deployed
it requires digital switches to replace the 1AESS,
fully digital long haul facilities for PRI's and Signal
System #7 for signal control in a separate control
plan from voice or data.
READ
ENTIRE ARTICLE
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v6 Transition Now Offers IPv6
Transition Services
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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.
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