This newsletter wraps up our discussion of IPv6 transition plans for the moment. And while we may have felt that the Federal Government may be a little overly zealous in its plans and mandates, and adoption by the Feds certainly does not mean that it’s a good idea, there’s no question that IPv6 needs to be on your radar scope for a transition within the next two to five years.
This newsletter wraps up our discussion of IPv6 transition plans for the moment. And while we may have felt that the federal government may be a little overly zealous in its plans and mandates, and adoption by the feds certainly does not mean that it’s a good idea, there’s no question that IPv6 needs to be on your radar scope for a transition within the next two to five years.
In the last newsletter, we mentioned an excellent Webcast by AT&T in which they discuss what AT&T is doing to make their network ready to support IPv6 and various steps that enterprises can be taking to ensure compatibility.
In particular, the Webcast discusses in a fair degree of detail the need for the coexistence of IPv4 and IPv6 for several years. Further, three specific mechanisms for coexistence are specified:Dual-stack – which allows IPv4 and IPv6 to co-exist in the same devices and networks
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•Tunneling – which allows IPv6 packets to be transmitted over an IPv4 infrastructure or vice versa later on when IPv6 becomes the more prevalent network
•Translation – which allows IPv6-only devices to communicate with IPv4-only devices (and is a work in progress)
The Webcast also suggests a migration plan that makes a lot of sense to us, with major steps of:
1. Establish IPv6 Internet presence
2. Enable internal users to access IPv6 Internet
3. Migrate WAN to dual-stack
4. Application migration
5. Complete move to IPv6
There are two steps in the above migration that deserve particular attention – the use of dual-stack technology (both in the LAN and in the WAN) and application migration.
For dual-stack technology to be effective, according to materials at Webtorials, “The evolution of the Internet to IPv6 will directly affect enterprise customers because they will have to communicate with their customers, partners, and suppliers over an IPv6 network.…As IPv6 propagates, early adopters can deliver innovative platforms, applications, and services that take advantage of the technical possibilities of IPv6.
A combination of both native IPv4 and IPv6, better known as dual stack, is the recommended coexistence strategy for enterprise networks.”
But what about the even tougher assignment of making your applications IPv6-compliant? Again, according to recently posted materials at Webtorials, “Organizations with IPv6-enabled endpoints on their networks that have not already converted all of their data center servers and IT applications to support IPv6, but want or need to take advantage of the IPv6 capability of those endpoints, need Network Address Translation 64 (NAT 64) support. These IPv6-enabled endpoints may be owned and controlled by the organization, they may be employee-provided, or they may be guest devices such as those owned by students on a college campus.”
Let us hear from you about your IPv6 plans. You’ll certainly be hearing much more from us.
