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MARCH 2007

Volume 4 Number 3

As we head into our biggest IPv6 Summit event ever, we would like to honor and thank the entire IPv6 community for supporting us in this next major step in helping the world transition to IPv6. We are just a couple weeks out from the US IPv6 Summit and Coalition Summit for IPv6 2007, and attendance and sponsorship are both at a record pace. This IPv6 Summit promises to be the largest IPv6-focused event in America, and will bring the best and brightest together March 26th – 29th, 2007 in Reston, VA. With the participation of NATO, international government agencies and industry, you'll hear an outstanding line-up of speakers from around the world talk about what benefits IPv6 will bring to many of the problems that confront us today. In addition, we are looking forward to all that our sponsors have to offer and demonstrate, including presentations by the prime Tier One telecoms on how they can provide IPv6 connectivity for you–today! We are also excited about the unveiling of the real-life applications that are being developed for the IPv6 City of the Future project—we will have at least one history making event for you to witness, and tell your grandchildren about. The age of IPv6 is upon us, and we believe this upcoming Summit event will form a global arena for the smartest companies and agencies to lead the race.

This month's 6Sense features some great up-to-date information on IPv6 network transitions, applications and business models. We begin with an article from Shawn Khazzam, Senior Business Development Manager at OPNET Technologies, discussing how network design software will accelerate network migration and mitigate associated risks. Stan Barber, Vice President of NTT Communications, delivers some valuable information on why it is critical for every organization to develop a basic IPv6 migration strategy and begin experimentation as soon as possible. Silvia Hagen, of Sunny Connection, provides an interesting overview of the statistics behind an ever expanding IPv6 business case, and considers what the cost savings will be. BT Diamond IP Director, Tim Rooney, offers their second installment on IP4-to-IPv6 transition strategies with a closer look at tunneling technologies. Last, but certainly not least, Foundry networks has provided a valuable white paper, written by Val Oliva, who will also be speaking at the upcoming Summit event. The paper illustrates why it has become critical to focus not only on the network core during migration, but to also ensure that edge devices and services are up-to-speed.

We thank you for your participation, and look forward to meeting you at the Summits—see you in Reston!

Very respectfully,

Alex Lightman
Publisher, 6Sense Newsletter
CEO, Innofone.com, Inc.
A publicly traded company
OTC BB: IMEN

Over the past few years, organizations have been anticipating the need to migrate their current IPv4 network infrastructure to IPv6. For many, the time has finally arrived. The availability of IPv4 32-bit network addresses is significantly constrained and, as a result, the US Office of Management and Budget has mandated that all government agencies be IPv6 compliant by June 2008. IPv6 offers an expanded IP address space, as well as integrated security and mobility, enhanced equipment auto-configuration, and many other useful features.

According to numerous industry analysts, migration to IPv6 is a major network transition that requires considerable planning. Errors could result in costly network outages, security gaps, and application performance problems. A few of the questions that need to be addressed when developing a strategy are:

• Do existing network devices support IPv6? If not, can they be upgraded?
• How will existing legacy applications perform over IPv6?
• Will network capacity be adequate to support migration to IPv6?
• How will operational integrity be maintained during the incremental migration?
• How can network security and resiliency be ensured?

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As we all know, IPv6 has not been widely adopted in the US for a myriad of reasons, which have been recounted in various articles in 6Sense over the years. There are many who now expect the US Government OMB Mandate to drive more extensive IPv6 deployment. In turn, this would increase the adoption of the protocol, creating a dual-stack network with IPv6 operating alongside the current IPv4 transport. A few continue to insist that IPv6 is not useful enough to implement and would prefer to see other alternatives. What those alternatives might be remain diverse and uncoordinated, so no widely supported consensus on an alternative has arisen. As long as there is no consensus, IPv6 remains the only viable successor to IPv4.

However, IPv6 (like IPv4) is not a panacea. While the standards work for IPv6 started well over a decade ago, and the basic protocol has been stable for almost a decade (RFC 2460 was published in 1998), there remains concern about multihoming and the address allocation plan currently being used by registries (ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, etc.). The IETF and others are still working on refinements to some of the new capabilities in IPv6. This work may make others uneasy concerning its real readiness. These activities center on Mobility, QoS, use of the Flow label, handling of multi-addressable hosts and such. None of these concerns make IPv6 unusable for production traffic today, but this is important work that will allow IPv6 networks to realize capabilities that were not really available with IPv4. These issues were highlighted in the recently circulated draft profile for IPv6 in the US Government. However, NIST acknowledges that the IPv6 standards are stable and "operationally viable commercial implementations are becoming available." See page ES-1 of that report available at http://www.antd.nist.gov/usgv6-v1-draft.pdf.

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This article discusses what IPv6 means for your business. Should you invest in IPv6? If yes, when is the time to do it? How can you plan for IPv6 in order to make your transition a smooth and cost-effective one?

Obviously, when you introduce IPv6 into a network, costs will initially rise. You have to educate your IT staff on IPv6, you have to build test beds that let you test IPv6-related issues, you have to create a strategy, and you also have the costs of implementation.

And what is your return on investment? Why should you invest in IPv6 while you have a running IPv4 network?

A recent study conducted by the Department of Commerce (1) in conjunction with the independent research group RTI International (2) examines the costs and benefits associated with the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. The study comes to the following conclusions:

The cost for transition to IPv6 is estimated to be $1 billion per year, so IPv6 creates a services market projected to be approximately $25 billion over the next 25 years. The financial benefits of IPv6 transition are expected to be $10 billion per year. Of each dollar invested in IPv6, only about 8% is projected for the actual infrastructure upgrade and the other 92% for leveraging the advantages of IPv6.

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While everyone focuses on making sure that the Core of the network easily migrates to IPv6, it is critical to ensure that the Edge is also ready for IPv6. For seamless migration to IPv6 at the Edge, network managers must focus on some key fundamentals.

Network managers worldwide are contemplating their migration strategy to seamlessly support IPv6. These networks are located in the following areas:

• Federal and local governments, especially in the United States of America (USA)
• Enterprise companies within Asia and Europe
• Service Providers across the globe

Although this list does not include Enterprise networks in the USA, it is still important to understand the “gotchas” for ensuring that the Edge can migrate to IPv6. There are plenty of inherent benefits to be gained from a move to IPv6, including a consistent communication medium – IPv6 – used worldwide.

READ WHITE PAPER [44K PDF]

This article, excerpted from a white paper of the same name, is being presented over three issues of 6Sense and reviews the three primary migration technologies that can be used to transition from an IPv4 network to an IPv6 network. In February's issue we talked about Dual Stack. In this issue, we'll overview Tunneling. Then, in the April issue, we will discuss Translation. Click here to download our IPv6 Toolkit, which includes the full IPv4-to-IPv6 Transition Strategies white paper in addition to webinars on IPv6 management.

When we discuss migration, we're referring to an initial state of an IPv4-only network, which IPv6 nodes and networks are added to or overlaid over time, resulting in an IPv6-only network, or, more likely, a predominantly IPv6 network with continued IPv4 support.

Tunneling Approaches
A variety of tunneling technologies has been developed to support IPv4 over IPv6, as well as IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling. These technologies are generally categorized as configured or automatic. Configured tunnels are predefined, whereas automatic tunnels are created and torn down "on the fly." We'll discuss these two tunnel types after reviewing some tunneling basics.

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v6 Transition, a subsidiary of Innofone.com, Inc. offers a wide range of IPv6 support services for your organization. Our team of companies can help you with your IPv6 plans, whether they involve transitioning your network to a v6 configuration or developing and financing products or services for the upcoming market boom precipitated by the New Internet.

MORE INFO

Publisher's Intro

Ensuring a Successful IPv6 Transition with OPNET
Shawn Khazzam
OPNET Technologies, Inc.

Getting Experience Using IPv6
Stan Barber
NTT Communications

The IPv6 Business Case
Silvia Hagen
Sunny Connection AG

Making The Edge Ready for IPv6
Val Oliva
Foundry Networks

IPv4-to-IPv6 Transition Strategies: Tunneling Approaches
(Part 2 of 3)
Tim Rooney
BT Diamond IP

v6 Transition Offers IPv6 Support Services

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