Intro
by
Alex Lightman, Publisher
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This month's 6Sense has a comprehensive and very
timely article on Windows Vista by Joseph Davies of
the Microsoft Corporation, which identifies some of
the most important features of IPv6 in the forthcoming
Operating System. Mr. Davies explains how IPv6 support
in Vista differs from that of XP and Server 2003,
and how users will initiate v6 applications such as
peer-to-peer networking and IPsec when Vista becomes
widely available next year. Ankur Chadda and Philip
Joung of Spirent Communications provide answers to
the commonly asked question of whether IPv6 packets
will utilize more bandwidth, having conducted actual
tests across a range of file sizes. Mike Roussey of
v6 Transition discusses the ardently awaited availability
of useful IPv6 enabled consumer products and services.
David Goodrum of NFR Security, Inc., poses the question
of, “You’ve set up your network to support
IPv6 – then what?” Speaking of NFR, it
is co-hosting two upcoming webcasts on IPv6 security
issues with the v6 Transition team (details below).
Don’t forget to mark your calendars with the
next Summit, the Federal
IPv6 Summit in Reston, VA,
from 17-19 May. The theme for this conference
is Benefits, Innovations and Solutions,
and we expect a concentrated two days of expert testimony
from an outstanding line-up of government CIOs, CTOs,
and other IT leaders on what benefits from IPv6 will
accrue in the short and long term to the US government
and its industry partners, what policies are being
promulgated, and what solutions can be postulated
for the challenges anticipated during the transition
period. We expect strong support and attendance from
the Federal departments and contractors (both large
and small) that are starting to move aggressively
into the IPv6 space. We will witness live demonstrations
of actual IPv6 applications, and up-to-the-minute
reports on the first city in the US to be both totally
wireless and native IPv6 enabled – and what
this bodes for other American “IPv6 cities”
to come. Visit www.federalipv6summit.com
for further details. See you there !
Respectfully,
Alex Lightman
Publisher, 6Sense Newsletter
CEO, Innofone.com, Inc.
"The largest and fastest growing IPv6 pure-play"
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IPv6 Improvements in Windows
Vista
By Joseph Davies
Technical Writer, Windows Networking and Device
Technologies
Microsoft Corporation
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IPv6 is supported in Microsoft® Windows XP and
Windows Server™ 2003, but its use among networking
services and applications is limited. With Windows
Vista™ (in beta testing at the time of the publication
of this article), IPv6 support is installed by default
and built-in Windows Vista network services and applications
are now IPv6-capable. This new level of IPv6 support
in Windows Vista has the potential of igniting the
networking industry with new applications and connectivity
in the same way as the inclusion of a TCP/IP stack
in Windows 95 ignited the industry for the applications
and services of the Internet.
The IPv6 support in Windows Vista has the following
features:
- Installed, enabled and preferred by default
- Windows-wide support for IPv6
- New dual IP layer architecture
- Full IPsec support
- Teredo enhancements
- GUI-based configuration
- MLDv2
- LLMNR
- Literal IPv6 Addresses in URLs
- IPv6 over PPP
- DHCPv6
Note: This article describes features of the February
Community Technology Preview beta version of Windows
Vista. These features are subject to change and may
not be included in the final product due to marketing,
technical, or other reasons.
READ
ENTIRE ARTICLE
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Does Size Matter?
By
Ankur Chadda and Philip Joung
Spirent Communications
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Most readers of this newsletter fully understand
and appreciate the value and reasons for IPv6. Indeed,
IPv6 will make our networks easier to use, more secure,
more scalable and perform faster, right? Well, strong
arguments can be made for the first three (and numerous
articles have discussed this previously), but what
about the fourth? The story for performance isn't
quite so clear.
For one, maximum packet sizes have increased in size
from 64 kilobytes in IPv4 to 4 gigabytes in IPv6,
enabling a significant improvement in efficiency depending
on the traffic being transferred. IPv6 also has a
flow label feature which marks all the packets going
to a single destination with the same label. This
can improve efficiency by automatically having network
equipment handle these labeled packets in a similar
way.
Flow label information can be utilized to effectively
implement traffic engineering (according to usipv6.com,
it can improve efficiency from 27% in IPv4 to 81%
in IPv6). Headers in IPv6 have changed, with six fields
removed and one new field added, allowing for more
efficient routing.
What performance hits does IPv6 have? The headers
in IPv6 are now twice the size of ones in IPv4, which
is not bad given the large increase in address bit
size. IPv6 also adds IPSec, which itself adds further
overhead and can reduce performance. IPv4 is well
understood and mature, with many years of use globally,
often with custom hardware devoted to dealing with
and minimizing the weaknesses of IPv4. The IPv4 versions
of software have been optimized and tweaked for many
years, often bringing about improvements in performance
and stability. IPv6 can't claim the same level of
hardware or software maturity yet, although it will
quickly catch up as adoption increases. Indeed, the
story for performance isn't completely straightforward.
READ
ENTIRE ARTICLE
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If You Build It, They Will Come...
With A Little Help
By
David W. Goodrum, CEH
Federal Sales Manager, NFR Security
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You know you have to support IPv6... but then
what? So, you've got an IPv6 backbone…
that doesn't do you much good until applications
and hosts starting actually speaking IPv6, and not
just tunneling IPv4 over IPv6. But, don't worry,
if you build it, they will come (to steal a line from
Field of Dreams)… and with a little help they
might come faster than you hoped.
Creating the field of dreams (your IPv6 backbone)
will eventually entice administrators, developers,
vendors and visionaries to take advantage of that
field. However, there's a little problem. What if
the players aren't ready? You've got thousands of
end users still running IPv4 probably, and you need
to know how hard it's going to be to update them for
IPv6. Or, what if there are players ready, but you
don't know about them? Heck, how do you even know
when any IPv6 player actually takes to the field you've
built for them? How do you measure the Return on your
Investment (ROI) into this new IPv6 backbone? NFR
Security is one provider helping to answer
these questions, and provide solutions to meet customers
IPv6 needs today. Let's take each question one at
a time.
READ
ENTIRE ARTICLE
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Assessing Market Demand for IPv6
in Consumer Technology
By
Mike Roussey
Director, v6 Transition
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Turning Our Attention to IPv6 and Consumer Technology
The vast majority of news regarding IPv6 has centered
on OMB’s mandate that Federal Agencies transition
their network backbones by June 2008. To this point,
considerably less has been said of the subsequent
and potentially massive consumer migration to IPv6
capable devices in their home and personal networks
in the United States. Assuming that the government
does not mandate a transition, a consumer transition
to IPv6 in the United States will be driven by market
demand. In other words, it won’t be a “because
I said so” impetus to the consumer migration,
rather a “what’s in it for me” scenario
that will drive the consumer transition. Certainly
the government’s transition will influence and
impact consumer technology, especially when innovation
and enhanced capabilities are discovered as IPv6 is
transitioned into federal networks.
IPv6 is an enabling technology, and not a silver
bullet that will immediately provide enhanced capabilities
to the consumer. IPv6 will provide almost infinitely
more IP addresses than IPv4 and will enhance auto-configuration,
quality of service, and security and authentication
capabilities. IPv6 along with Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) integrated into mobile devices and consumer
technology will open many new opportunities for consumers
in terms of logistics and how they do business. This
begs the question, “Which of the redeeming attributes
of IPv6 will ultimately drive the market demand for
IPv6 capable services and devices?”
READ
ENTIRE ARTICLE
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Federal Computer Week:
Your Marketing Partner for Government Technology
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Federal Computer Week is the leading media
brand for the government information technology market.
Our print, online, event, custom media and research
products address the business value of technology
in government—integrating coverage of government,
business and technology issues to help government
IT decision-makers achieve results and meet agency
missions. Federal Computer Week's integrated
media platform serves the information needs of members
of the entire government IT buying team—agency
executives, program managers, IT managers and systems
integrators—across all segments of federal,
state and local government. That makes Federal
Computer Week the smartest marketing partner for
today's government technology marketers. For more
information, please visit www.fcw.com.
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Live Webcasts on IPv6 Security
Issues
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NFR Security and v6 Transition have combined forces
to provide two upcoming webcasts in April, accessible
via the www.nfr.com website. The first (on April 11,
at 11:00 hours EST and April 12, at 14:00 hours EST)
will be on scanning a commercial user's address
space (of 18 quintillion new IPv6 addresses), and
how IPv6 affects active vulnerability scanners. The
second webcast (on April 19, at 14:00 EST or April
20, at 11:00 EST) is on identifying the targeted environment,
including nodes already running IPv6, finding tunnels
already running on your network, and identifying hosts
and applications that must be upgraded before they
can be migrated to IPv6.
MORE
INFO
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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.
MORE
INFO
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