General

Major Companies Give IPv6 Year-End Push

Just when everyone was saying IPv6, the next generation Internet Protocol, was never going to get any respect, a series of announcements gave new credibility to the technology.

by Jim Thompson [December 26, 2001]

First, Global Crossing announced that it's making IPv6 available over its entire IP network. Next, Cisco Systems, Inc. chimed in with two announcements. The routing giant has added a number of new IPv6 features to their IOS software, including protocol translation between IPv6 and IPv4 and integration with Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). They also announced that they have joined a consortium that is building a pan-European, high-capacity IPv6 research network.

Juniper Networks is also joining the IPv6 booster club. The company has built support for IPv6 into the Junos 5.1 router operating system. The upgrade, available across all their routers, makes it possible for customers to run IPv4 and IPv6 networks simultaneously.

Global Crossing bridges IPv6 divide
Global Crossing has made it clear that they are fully committed to IPv6 and will make it a part of their entire network. In the first phase, which takes effect this month (December, 2001), their Far East division, Asia Global Crossing, is making the protocol available on a trial basis in Japan.

Japan was selected as the beta test site because of Japan's looming address shortage and the mandate by the Japanese government that IPv6 be incorporated into all government, educational, and industrial networks.

The company plans to initially offer IPv6 with tunneling technology. This will allow carrier, ISP, and Multinational enterprise customers to use both IPv6 and IPv4 protocols simultaneously by encapsulating IPv6 packets into IPv4 packets.

Asia Global Crossing says that with their peering arrangements, carriers and ISPs will be able to provide IPv6 access to other IPv6 enabled locations on the Internet.

Assuming the initial testing goes as planned, Global Crossing will expand IPv6 capability throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Cisco continues IPv6 push
In its continuing effort to make IPv6 a worldwide standard, Cisco Systems, Inc. has announced their so-called "Phase II solution." Most significantly, this phase features a protocol translation between IPv6 and IPv4. Using the new protocol translation software for existing Cisco routers, service providers can connect IPv6 network segments directly to IPv4 networks.

Phase II of their three-part plan also introduces improved security, MPLS support, scalable routing, and management services. Distributed switching, which allows for routing information to be accelerated, was also announced.

Phase III, which was previewed at the recent IPv6 Forum Summit in Japan, includes native support for the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing protocol for large-scale deployments. Additionally, hardware-accelerated IPv6 forwarding on the Cisco 12000 series Internet router was also demonstrated. Support for VoIP and multi-casting is also expected in the Phase III roll-out.

Cisco's Phase II functionality is available now for limited deployment. Wider availability is expected in the first half of 2002. Current supported platforms include the following Cisco series routers: 800, 1400, 1600, 1700, 2500, 2600, 3600, 710, 7200, 7500 and 12000. Support for Catalyst 6500 and 7600 series routers is planned for a future release of the IOS software.

Cisco is also spearheading a pan-European IPv6-based research network called the 6NET. Funded largely by the European Commission (EC), Cisco is providing the routers, switches, and IOS software for what will reportedly be the world's largest native IPv6 network.

According to Martin McNealis, director of product marketing for Cisco's Internet Technologies Division, "6NET will allow service providers and research institutions to define next-generation network capabilities for delivery of new applications and services."

Initially, the 6NET project will span eight European countries and link to other IPv6 initiatives in North America and the Asia-Pacific region. 6NET and Euro6IX, another EC-directed project, are designed to drive IPv6 deployment across Europe over the next three years.

Juniper jumps in
Juniper Networks has also jumped on the IPv6 bandwagon with the addition of IPv6 capabilities to its Net access and core router platforms and interfaces.

Juniper notes that the added capability leverages the power of the Internet Processor II ASIC and the latest release (5.1) of their JUNOS software. They claim that it allows service providers to run IPv6 and IPv4 simultaneously in production networks without a loss in performance.

Among those running Juniper Networks M-series routers are GIP RENATER, which is responsible for France's National Telecommunications Network for technology, Teaching, and Research (Le Réseau National de Télécommunications pour la Technologie, l'Enseignement, et la Recherche abbreviates to RENATER in French), and the Palo Alto Internet Exchange (PAIX), an IPv6 exchange point where North American, European, and Asian IPv6 networks peer.

Diagnosis danger
"The patches we have put into place to survive with IPv4 have made the Internet more fragile and resulted in more single points of failure," warned Cisco's Steve Deering.

"It's much harder to manage and understand the network when it's not working properly," he noted. "The situation is complicated because it comes at the same stage where we are trying to convince everyone to move all applications and commercial traffic onto the Internet. If the world is going to depend on the Internet, it's important to maintain a robust and reliable infrastructure. It's a serious problem."

The major infrastructure providers and equipment manufacturers agree on this point and are moving to implement IPv6. Cisco is among the most aggressive in this area. They have announced an IPv6 translation router that is slated for release later this year.

Meanwhile, they've made IPv6 available in their IOS software release 12.2(2)T. The IPv6 upgrade is available as a free download from Cisco's website. The upgrade covers the majority of their currently available routers. According to a Cisco press release, "Cisco is delivering the industry's most widely tested and deployed IPv6 router solution."

In addition to Cisco, Intel, 3Com, Ericsson, Telebit, Hitachi, Nortel, and 6WIND have or are working on solutions for implementing IPv6 and/or translating from IPv4 to IPv6. Host support is available for BSD (Berkeley Systems Development), Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Linux, Microsoft, SCO Unix, and Sun Microsystems operating systems as well as others.

IPv6 is not perfect. It's a compromise that grew out of a lot of tradeoffs. "It builds on the architecture of IPv4, which has proven to be very successful. But we're at the stage where the original design is at its scaling limits. We need IPv6 to restore the ability of the protocol and keep the original design going," said Deering.