Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Enterprise IPv6 Video with Jeff Doyle and Shannon McFarland

Seems that the video shoot I did with Jeff Doyle and Shannon McFarland over 6 months ago might finally come out. They have a preview available on YouTube so go take a look and please leave feedback and comments.



It is a huge honor to be able to talk IPv6 with such legends as Jeff and Shannon. I even managed to sneak in Joseph Davies' Understanding IPv6, Third Edition into the video shoot, it is on top of Shannon's Cisco Press title he co-authored, IPv6 for Enterprise Networks on the table in front of me.
- Ed

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Another year as a Microsoft MVP

I'm a little late getting the news out but I am happy to say I was renewed as a Microsoft MVP for another year. Many thanks to all those in the Microsoft MVP program for continuing to recognize my community contributions, I hope I can continue to live up to the award standards in the years to come. Eventually someone will get tired of hearing me go on and on about IPv6 but for now it seems there is some value in preaching the IPv6 message.

It also turns out this year is my 10th award. I find it hard to believe it has been 10 years since I was first an MVP and I am not sure how I feel about crossing that milestone. I'll let you know later after I have thought about it some more - or I will just avoid it altogether.

Congratulations to all the other renewing MVP's and a huge tip of the hat to brand new MVP's. It takes awhile to understand what just happened to you, enjoy it and make the effort to attend the MVP Summit, it really is worth your time.
- Ed

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

IPv6 only networks

After having a fun twitter exchange with Andrew Yourtchenko on some post Cisco Live! IPv6 presentations that Andrew gave on MAP we ended up chatting about IPv6 only networks and some of the challenges we will face in the next phase of the IPv6 transition. While many of those in IT haven't even gotten their arms around deploying IPv6 there are folks looking ahead to address what to do when you run an IPv6 only network.

It turns out that many client OS behavior is NOT what you want. Particularly in the mobile device space which is ironic since mobile is driving many of the needs for IPv6. There are dependencies on IPv4 or some deployments simply lack functional support to operate when in an IPv6 only network. Android will wait on RFC 6106 for RDNSS support but most networks do not provide that however it does NOT support DHCPv6 via wifi soooo, the device will get an IPv6 address but then do nothing because it has no DNS information at all.

Andrew gave a nice presentation at RIPE earlier this year that is worth watching to understand what the core problem currently is with running an IPv6 only network. His presentation is at https://ripe66.ripe.net/archives/video/1196/

Just for fun, set up an IPv6 only network and see if you can get your environment working. You should be able to hit an IPv6 dual stacked site to determine what is and is not working. If you need some IPv6 sites to try here is a short list to get you started:
http://www.cav6tf.org/
http://www.nav6tf.org/
http://test-ipv6.com/
- Ed



Monday, July 01, 2013

Some additional IPv6 RFC's

I have been going through some IPv6 book chapters and doing IPv6 RFC review and there are a few that I think are of interest to add to your short list - if you keep one for IPv6. If not, there is a pretty comprehensive list at http://www.ipv6now.com.au/RFC.php

First up is RFC 6540 which is titled "IPv6 Support Required for All IP-Capable Nodes" and can be found at http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6540

Second up is RFC 6877 which is titled "464XLAT: Combination of Stateful and Stateless Translation" http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6877

Third is RFC 6866 which is titled "Problem Statement for Renumbering IPv6 Hosts with Static Addresses in Enterprise Network" http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6866

Fourth is RFC 6853 which is titled "DHCPv6 Redundancy Deployment Considerations" http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6853


Finally, you really need to keep RFC 6724 handy to understand how your OS is selecting a default IPv6 address to use, it is titled "Default Address Selection for Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)" http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6724

Hope these are useful. There are a lot more IPv6 RFC's that have been published recently, mainly around mobile operators and their need requirements but it is nice seeing a lot of work happening to keep the IPv6 bandwagon moving forward.
- Ed