Some new IPv6 tools to explore

My company (https://hexabuild.io) has been investing in building out IPv6 tool and I wanted to take a moment and cover some of them. The goal is to have a series of free (you need to set up a login, but that is it) and paid for tools that are IPv6 specific that help you learn, plan, design, and architect IPv6 networks. So here is the current list of tools, you can check them out yourself on the website.

Free tier:

• IPv6 Compatibility Checker (technically a different website, we launched it before the new company website design change)
• Network Assessment
• Deployment Analytics
• IETF RFC IPv6 Reference Guide
• IPv6 Packet Builder
• NDP State Machine Simulator
• IPv6 BGP Viewer

In the paid for tier (which is in beta and we are not currently charging for it but you do need to request access) there is:

• IPv6 Address Planner
• IPv6 Feature Gap Analyzer
• IPv6 Adoption Planner
• Training Hub

We would love feedback on the tools, if they are useful, and if there are other tools you think might be useful that are not already available in the community. 

- Ed

IPv6 Compatibility

 My company HexaBuild launched a new community resource site at IPv6compatibility.com and if you are trying to figure out if a given set of network related hardware and software supports IPv6, you can use the site to figure that out. Just a quick post to let everyone know it is up and available.

Some quick notes about the site. We use Replit AI to do the work on figuring out capabilities. That means, by definition, it isn't perfect, hasn't been checked by any IPv6 expert, and may have errors. But, the trade off is it is free and relatively low maintenance for us. Also, just the process of looking through the features and functions that the site is looking for will help you learn more about what questions and features you should be asking for from your vendors!

Feel free to post feedback through the site and let us know products or features that are missing or you would like to see.

- Ed

IPv6-only has become a thing

Outside of posting content around Tech Field Day events I occasionally participate in, my blog hasn't seen a lot of activity. Mainly because I have been posting content over at the Infoblox IPv6 Center of Excellence or via the IPv6 Buzz Podcast. I recommend you check both those out, it isn't just me generating that content but also Scott Hogg, Tom Coffeen, Cody Christman, Tim Martin, and other great IPv6 content creators.

I did want to highlight one observation I have made starting at the end of 2022 and continuing throughout 2023 and that is the noticeable increase of discussions around IPv6-only. In the past, IPv6-only was a smaller corner case for many organizations as everyone thought the natural progression for IPv6 adoption (IPv6 transition) was to move to dual-stack first and figure out the deployment and operational issues and then shut off IPv4. The problem with this workflow was twofold. First, it is difficult to determine operational issues in dual-stack networks as happy eyeballs hides many of those issues from you. And second is that no one actually turns off IPv4, which defeats the whole purpose of adopting IPv6 for the long run.

There is no denying that part of the reason for some much IPv6-only conversation is due to the IPv6 transition requirement that OMB published regarding moving to IPv6-only. Deploying dual-stack doesn't help an organization meet the requirements defined in the memo, which leaves these departments and agencies to figure out how to do IPv6-only. There are also now more Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies who are having significant IPv4 address supply issues and realizing they only want to get around those is to either buy more costly public IPv4 address space or adopt IPv6-only to slow the burn rate of IPv4 usage.

Every organization has their unique business and technical requirements. IPv6-only may only address problems in one of those problems spaces. But it is a tool that more organizations are realizing they should have in their tool belt and that they can get wins in both business and technical requirements. For example, IPv6-only makes merger and acquisitions much easier to perform as making use of GUA space guarantees uniqueness of addresses, meaning it is a simple routing and peering problem to integrate the networks and not a NAT or re-addressing project that might take years to complete. It also means the timeframe to perform a merger or to integrate an acquired company drops dramatically. This has profound impact on the financial structure of the deal which is something that should not be overlooked.

I think it is important for people to realize there are not a lot of people with industry experience deploying IPv6-only networks. So, be cautious when talking with vendors, consultants, and industry peers about what to do. Very few people have the experience and design skills to navigate everything that goes into making IPv6-only a reality. I have interacted with a lot of vendors and consultants recently who claim they can do it, but the only IPv6 they have deployed is dual-stack and they have serious gaps in their knowledge and in the solutions that will actually work. So, do your homework and buyer beware. I will try and post some IPv6-only resources as I run across them (or just write them myself!)

- Ed

2022 - Year in review and a look ahead at 2023

 It seems my blogging has fallen off a lot since co-founding HexaBuild and working on IPv6 full time. I wanted to at least get a post out this year talking about some of the interesting things I have observed in the industry and note if I think they will be trends or simple market changes that won't have much impact.

First, regarding IPv6, it appears that IPv6-only design and architecture is accelerating at a rapid pace and I anticipate that will continue into 2023 and 2024. This is driven in part by the White House OMB mandate but also my the cost structure of IPv4 and the open market to obtain IPv4 addresses that have a clean reputation and are available to use immediate. While enterprise organizations will ponder over IPv6 in 2023 and 2024 and potentially kick off projects, they will, for the most part have limited deployments. The exceptions will be organizations that are consuming all their RFC 1918 address space and their public IPv4 address space due to rapid public cloud expansion. This has been a huge driving force around IPv6 discussions to try and help reduce the rate of IPv4 address space consumption. I don't see that changing in 2023 or 2024 but with some organizations repatriating their workloads, it may slow down.

Second, I think automation is the only way to safely adopt IPv6 for larger organizations and they need to invest in tooling, platforms and their staff to make that happen. Given the complexity of dual-stack for many organizations, getting a consistent deployment method that reduces typing/character mistakes is really important for IPv6. Since many organizations are moving that direction already, it is a natural fit and means that automation processes include IPv6 from day one.

Finally, security is becoming interesting again and Zero Trust is changing how team think about deploying and building services. Zero Trust is another natural fit for incorporating IPv6 early on in the process to ensure you can support all your potential network ingress/egress protocols. Thinking through the dual-stack solution and projecting that to IPv6-only allows you to work through many of the corner cases and potential access issues that end clients would run into in the real world.

So, 2023 will likely be a lot of work around IPv6-only, automation, and Zero Trust, is going to be my guess. Of course more cloud, but I think that is just a given going forward. What are everyone else's thoughts about what 2023 will likely consist of for technology focus?

- Ed

Network Field Day 25 May 12-14, 2021 - A Changing Networking Landscape

Here we go, Network Field Day 25 (NFD25) is May 12-14, 2021. It is a good line up of presenters and delegates so check out the full event schedule at the NFD25 website. First point, I thinks this NFD shows the changing networking landscape. Yes, some big network brands are still the focus but it is interesting seeing the list of presenters. What previously were second or third options for many companies are being first or second. Second point, the influence of a larger single vendor is slowing changing and the ecosystem is changing with it. I'm exciting to hear what all these sponsors have to say. Below I have some quick thoughts on some of the companies that I know something about.

Aruba/HPE - Just keeping up with all the changes and improvements Aruba has been doing can be tough now. They have built an impressive networking business around the Aruba product family and I believe they are a serious network vendor that enterprises should be evaluating. I'm looking forward to hearing what updates and product innovations they might have to share.

Juniper - It is going to be interesting to see if Juniper can make the sort of inroads that Aruba did in the Enterprise networking space. With Mist, they have a real chance and expanding their campus networking solutions seems to be a big goal for the company. I think their challenge is winning back trust after really stepping away from that market to focus on their core routing platforms. I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of talk around AI/ML.

Nokia - I have been hearing positive things around Nokia's networking products for a long time. I unfortunately haven't had the opportunity to actually work on and use their gear. I am hoping Nokia is out to change that and perhaps provide easier ways for those of us who aren't as familiar with their products to have the opportunity to learn more and perhaps see some good demos and use cases where they really shine.

Obviously, I will be asking each company their IPv6 plans, capabilities, use cases and such. I think there is a lot more weight to the question this NFD because of the White House OMB Memo M-21-07. Federal agencies need to put a focus on getting IPv6 deployed, and products that don't support IPv6 are going to have issues. So I won't be satisfied with some of the dismissive answers of the past like "our customers aren't asking for it" or "it is on our 3 year roadmap" or "we have IPv6 support, but I'm not familiar with it, can we get back to you?" Those presenting should know and understand IPv6 at this point, and it is NOT my job to explain it to you, justify why it is needed, or what the market for it is, seriously, that ship has sailed. We are in the early majority stage for IPv6 adoption and it will only accelerate from here.

If you are at all into networking then I encourage you to follow along live for the events on the Tech Field Day website or keep up with the activity via twitter by following the hashtag #NFD25. 

- Ed

In a spirit of fairness (and also because it is legally required by the FTC), I am posting this Disclosure Statement. It is intended to alert readers to funding or gifts that might influence my writing. My participation in Tech Field Day events was voluntary and I was invited to participate in NFD25. Tech Field Day is hosted by Gestalt IT and my hotel, transportation, food and beverage was/is paid for by Gestalt IT for the duration of the event, if travel was involved. In addition, small swag gifts or donations were/are provided by some of the sponsors of the event to delegates. It should be noted that there was/is no requirement to produce content about the sponsors and any content produced does not require review or editing by Gestalt IT or the sponsors of the event.

New job, new podcast, new focus...

It has been an interesting year for me and I'm excited to say I have decided to strike out on my own with some good friends and colleagues to start HexaBuild. We are focusing on advancing cloud, IoT and security with IPv6. The transition for IPv6 is well on it's way for service providers, residential providers, content and media distribution networks, and mobile operators. So, today in the US you can be using services that are all IPv6 enabled everywhere except at your office. Because enterprises have lagged so far behind in addressing the IPv6 adoption story they are now handicapped in participating in the whole Internet. HexaBuild is all about addressing those needs. We do that through training, consulting, education and enablement. Because we are consulting company, we are happy to work with resellers, distributors, manufactures and Fortune 1000 companies to help them get their IPv6 adoption strategy going.

Second bit of news is I am now co-hosting a regular podcast called The IPv6 Buzz on the PacketPushers. If you are interested in being a guest please reach out. It is just something fun to do and we have some fantastic IPv6 guests lined up. Use your favorite podcasting app and grab it, we are currently in the Community Channel w/ PacketPushers but they will be moving us out on our own shortly!

Finally, focus. After spending two years running an engineering team and worrying about the company, sales, team and careers of everyone else I get to focus on what I love again. I really enjoy talking tech with colleagues and friends, I have fun working and building stuff with IPv6 and finally I get to do a bit of travel. Don't get me wrong, it was awesome working with the engineering team at Groupware but it was time for a change and I get to see how my change in focus will work out. Oh, yes, I get to read more too! I will update that book list here shortly.
- Ed

Amazon Web Services adding more IPv6 support

Right on the heels of Microsoft Azure's announcement of IPv6 support for VM's and AWS's own announcement earlier of IPv6 support for S3 is the current AWS IPv6 news. Specifically, AWS has enabled IPv6 support for CloudFront, AWS WAF, and S3 Transfer Acceleration. You can read more about this at https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2016/10/ipv6-support-for-cloudfront-waf-and-s3-transfer-acceleration/ for details. This isn't the announcement I wanted to see from AWS (full IPv6 support for all services and VPC) but it is a huge step in the right direction. Given the pace of announcements I would not be surprised to hear full IPv6 support by re:Invent at the end of November 2016.
Once that final announcement is done from AWS, the landscape of IPv6 adoption will change dramatically. If you break down the IPv6 adoption areas it is clear to see where the work is needed.

US Mobile Providers - All have native IPv6 or dual-stack support - so everyone with mobile access has IPv6
US Broadband Providers - Majority have dual-stack support - so most home users have IPv6
Public Cloud Providers - All should have dual-stack support by the end of 2016 - so anyone deploying services or apps in the cloud has IPv6
Content Providers - All have native IPv6 or dual-stack support - so majority of content to be consumed is available over IPv6

So what is left?
Enterprise and Commercial Business
Federal, State and Local Government
Higher Education

With Google IPv6 Statistics for the US market now reporting close to 30% of traffic hitting Google as IPv6 it seems it is okay to label those who are remaining as late adopters or laggards. It is time for those in that category to start getting their adoption plans done and start implementing. I'm pretty sure not communicating natively with about 1/3 of the Internet is not an acceptable technology stance but I am open to other opinions. Let me know your thought!
- Ed

Microsoft Azure finally supports IPv6

I have been waiting a long time for this to happen. Microsoft announced at Ignite 2016 in Atlanta the general availability of IPv6 (technically dual-stack) support for Azure VMs. It isn't available in all regions but the list of supported regions is really large which is a great sign. You can see the announcement at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/ipv6-for-azure-vms/

I need to jump in and do some quick labs and testing next week to play with things but I am hopeful this will allow me to test some more complex IPv6 scenarios and run some labs too. I will update once I have a better idea of how it all looks.

With Amazon AWS adding IPv6 support for S3 and likely adding more IPv6 support for other services in November at re:Invent I think 2016 is shaping up to be the hyper growth year for IPv6... finally.
- Ed

Interop Las Vegas 2016 - May 2-6 - Advanced IPv6 Design and Deployment in a Microsoft Enterprise Network

As a speaker, I get to pass out some discount codes for Interop. 25% off the site cost for the 5, 3 or 2 day passes so nothing to sneeze at in terms of savings. Many thanks to the Interop folks for doing that. No restriction on the discount code best I know (so pass it out to friends and colleagues) except it has to be used by Friday, April 29th.

This year at Interop I will be presenting on "Advanced IPv6 Design and Deployment in a Microsoft Enterprise Network" and the focus is really about what does and doesn't work. It is a practical, in person, update of Chapter 3 of my book Practical IPv6 for Windows Administrators from Apress. The goal is to pass along some of the lessons learned and updates on some IPv6 behavior, specifically around the Microsoft Windows OS.

Last year I did a full 3 hour IPv6 workshop on IPv6 that covered a wider range of IPv6 concerns. This year, I wanted to focus on IPv6 issues that would impact Enterprise, Commerical, and Small Businesses who run Microsoft Windows in their environment. We can detour a bit talking about Virtualization (VMware and Hyper-V) depending on what the audience wants to cover.

I'm really looking forward to seeing many friends, colleagues and fellow speakers in Las Vegas next month for Interop and I encourage you to join me. I consider Interop to be one of the shining stars of independent conferences that gets great content, excellent independent speakers and really has an impact on the industry and value for the attendees. If you are attending, please let me know via twitter, perhaps we can meet in person at some point during the event.

Finally, if you attend my session you have a chance to win a signed copy of my book. I will give out two copies after my session is over. I encourage you to also attend some of the other IPv6 content that will be presented at Interop. Hope to see you there!

- Ed

TechMentor Las Vegas 2016 - March 6-11 - IPv6 Workshop

 

TechMentor Las Vegas Registration - discount code TMLSK08

As a speaker, I can extend $500 savings on the 5-day package. Just use the link above to get that deal. Sort of cool that TechMentor does that.

I'm excited to be presenting a 3 hour pre-conference workshop at TechMentor Las Vegas this year. It is on IPv6 and is designed to get an experienced IT professional up and running on IPv6 quickly. It is titled: TM06 Workshop: IPv6 Boot Camp: Get Up to Speed Quickly

The workshop is extra, above and beyond the regular TechMentor conference but trust me, I will make the session worth your time and investment. Plus, the list of other speakers is pretty impressive, check out who else will be presenting. I am going to sneak in to see Don Jones, Greg Shields, Jennelle Crothers, Jason Helmick, Jeff Hicks, Richard Hicks, Sami Laiho, Mark Minasi - oh wait, those are more sessions than I can fit on my schedule! You get the idea.

If you need to understand the dos and don't around IPv6, what could derail you, what problems you might face, how IPv6 is operationally different and how to go about troubleshooting, this workshop is for you. You will walk away with a 60 page workbook and the slides in addition to the actual session content. I will be bringing 3 signed copies of my book to give away too, why not!

This workshop covers content I don't explicitly have in my book or in the Pluralsight course I have authored. It really is lessons learned from deploying and working with customers. So come learn how to avoid some of the painful things I have lived through in deploying IPv6 so you can get your project off the ground faster and with fewer issues. I look forward to seeing you there.

TechMentor will also be having a private social event on Monday evening (the day of the workshops) and I would love to hang out and talk IPv6. I've always been impressed with the great interaction of TechMentor attendees so I am looking forward to hearing some stories and perhaps sharing one or two myself!
- Ed

IPv6 site local addresses - why are those still around?

There have been more than a few occasions that site local addresses (which was deprecated by RFC 3879 way back in 2004) have been brought up to me lately, specifically around a feature that Windows has had for a very long time. This feature is the automatic use of three well know site local DNS name server entries if no IPv6 name server is provided to an interface. The three IPv6 addresses are:
fec0:0:0:0:ffff::1
fec0:0:0:0:ffff::2
fec0:0:0:0:ffff::3
You can see these in use on interfaces on the Windows client or server machine, especially for interfaces you might not be aware of on a given host. For instance, you might have ISATAP tunnel interfaces or a Bluetooth interface that display these. You can check using the following PowerShell:
PS C:\> Get-DnsClientServerAddress | ft

That will display all the client DNS server information for all the interfaces on a given Windows host. From that you will see something like:
InterfaceAlias               Interface Address ServerAddresses                                                                                                          
                             Index     Family                                                                                                                           
--------------               --------- ------- ---------------                                                                                                          
Local Area Connection 2             24 IPv4    {}                                                                                                                       
Local Area Connection 2             24 IPv6    {fec0:0:0:ffff::1, fec0:0:0:ffff::2, fec0:0:0:ffff::3}                                                                   

isatap.{7901A47F-5E03-43A...        39 IPv4    {}                                                                                                                       
isatap.{7901A47F-5E03-43A...        39 IPv6    {fec0:0:0:ffff::1, fec0:0:0:ffff::2, fec0:0:0:ffff::3}                                                                                                                                                                                          Bluetooth Network Connection         6 IPv4 {}                                                                                                                       
Bluetooth Network Connection         6 IPv6    {fec0:0:0:ffff::1, fec0:0:0:ffff::2, fec0:0:0:ffff::3} 

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There have been expressed some concerns about this being a vector of exploit because if someone sets up a DNS service on those IPv6 address space they could potentially lie to your host because you will use that as the preferred DNS resolver. This actually isn't the case and it has to do with the prefix policy table. So lets look at some more details.

One of the reason there is no concern around the misuse of site local to exploit a system is due to how the classification of site local is handled in the prefix policy table. You can view the local prefix policy table with the following PowerShell:
PS C:\> Get-NetPrefixPolicy

And the output is:
Prefix                                                       Precedence      Label
------                                                       ----------      -----
3ffe::/16                                                             1         12
fec0::/10                                                             1         11
::/96                                                                 1          3
fc00::/7                                                              3         13
2001::/32                                                             5          5
2002::/16                                                            30          2
::ffff:0:0/96                                                        35          4
::/0                                                                 40          1
::1/128                                                              50          0

The precedence of 1 means it is the least preferred, the same as the former 6bone network of 3ffe::/16 for instance which is no longer in use. The important thing to notice is that ::ffff:0:0/96 has a higher precedence based off the recommendations in RFC 6724. This means that IPv4 traffic and therefore DNS name resolver selection is preferred over site local. So if you have no IPv6 DNS server information even if you did have a site local DNS name server you would not use it if an IPv4 DNS name server option was available. This is the only use case that you might have an issue because if you are using any IPv6 and publishing an IPv6 DNS name resolver then you will prefer that IPv6 DNS name resolver right away. So the only use case where you might potentially use site local is if you actually assign a host an site local address. It makes no sense to do that at all but that is the one case where you might have a problem. So, the simple conclusion is...
Don't use site local, which is obvious, since it was depricated way back in 2004.

Hope this helps to address some concerns around this.
- Ed

ARIN IPv4 run out on RunAs Radio, time for IPv6! - Show 440

Super happy to have done another RunAs Radio show with Richard Campbell. We chat about what just happened with ARIN and the IPv4 run out. We cover a wide area of topics but it is hard to stay focused when chatting with a person as diverse and knowledgable as Richard!
Check out the show!
- Ed

ARIN finally ran out of IPv4 - what's next?

We have known for a long time that ARIN would be depleting their IPv4 address pool sometime this year. It happened yesterday Sept 24, 2015. So what does that really mean? Unlike some of the other RIRs around the world, ARIN chose to not have any excess reserved pool but to simply completely burn down what IPv4 address blocks they have left in inventory. This means that unlike other RIRs there is not "reserve" bucket at all to reach back into.

Honestly, while the event in very important we are still going to see IPv4 use for a long time. The reason why is that the majority of small and medium sized businesses still get their IPv4 address space from their local service provider. These ISPs still have IPv4 inventory left. I haven't seen any consolidated information about how much inventory major US providers have left but I can imagine at least several years worth. So, if a business needs IPv4 addresses they can still get them.

I do think to get them you will pay more money. Plan and simple economics come up. IPv4 is now a scarce commodity and the price per IPv4 address will only go up over time. This means that IPv6 addresses will become more common as they will be the cost effective option. Especially since that is the only way for the service providers to continue to grow and add customers. So for customers demanding IPv4 for any reason they will have to pay more and those that are willing to go IPv6 only will likely get the most cost effective service pricing.

The other impact is that a lot more folks are going to have to start getting comfortable with IPv6. How to manage it, use it and write applications that run on top of it. There is no way you can claim to be an early adopter of IPv6 at all now but you can certainly join the rapidly growing group of users who are learning and using IPv6. IPv6 is the future and the future is now!
- Ed

Datanauts 006 – Assessing IPv6 Readiness

I had a great time talking with Ethan Banks and Chris Wahl who are the co-hosts of the Datanauts podcast over at the Packet Pushers website. We dug into IPv6 and the state of things today. You can listen to the show and let us know what you think by hitting up the gents at @datanauts_show.
I can't recommend this podcast highly enough, it is really well done. I'm not just saying this because I was on the show. Honestly, I've listened to all the other Datanauts shows they have put out, the content is really that good. It is worth your time, trust me. Hope you enjoy it and please feel free to give feedback about what you thought about the show too. You can just hit me up on twitter @ehorley.
- Ed

IPv6: Introduction to the Protocol is finally available on Pluralsight

It took me forever to get this course written and recorded (sorry Don) but it is finally available up on the Pluralsight website. Many thanks to Myles Wilson for staying with me through the whole journey as my editor and to Andy Newman for thinking I was worthy of producing some content for Pluralsight (technically he was chasing me to do this since the Trainsignal days). Last but far from least is a tip of the hat and thanks to Steve Evans who first put my name in to Andy. Thanks to Steve my wife is now asking me daily why I haven't put out more content up on Pluralsight.

If you have feedback about the course don't be shy. I can do updates, revisions or fixes so let me know. Remember, this course is an introduction or beginner level course. So all my friends who are IPv6 experts, keep that in mind! You can reach out via twitter to let me know or leave a comment below.
- Ed

IPv6, Docker and building for scale

I've had some interesting conversations lately around some of my ideas about why Docker would be fundamentally better with IPv6 and IPv6 only. You can check out the podcast I did with Matt Oswalt and Jon Langemak for the ClassC Block.

Let's jump right into it. Some of the constraints around Docker is the IPv4 networking stack, how to do port forwarding, NAT and dealing with RFC 1918, even routing. There is a lot of state and management that goes into all that code to just deal with basic networking.

What if we could use a new paradigm to make Docker easier, with less state and dependencies and best of all, not having to remap any ports at all?

What if we gave every Docker host a routed /64 IPv6 address prefix and allowed it to preallocate IPv6 addresses from that /64 block to any Docker container that wanted to be run on that platform.

Better yet, let's never reuse that IPv6 address again - every (what?!? are you crazy?!?). How long would it take to burn through that /64 of public IPv6 address space?

As  Leonard Hofstadter's mom on Big Bang Theory said, "I'd like to do the math." So here we go:
Let's assume a crazy number of containers on a single host in a second, something so large no one will argue with us about it not being large enough.

• How about 10,000,000 per second <-- yes, 10 million per second

• A standard /64 prefix in IPv6 is 18,446,744,073,709,600,000 addresses.

 And the math:
18,446,744,073,709,600,000 IPv6 addresses / (10,000,000 IPv6 addresses/second * 60 sec/min * 60 min/hr * 24 hr/day * 365 days/yr) = 58,494 years

To consume a single /64 of address space on a single Docker host that is generating 10 million containers per second it would take more than 58 thousand years to consume all the IPv6 addresses.

A single /48 that you would allocate to a data center has 65,536 /64's in it. So, if you allocate an entire /48 to just your Docker hosts (this means you are running a data center with 65,536 servers) then you will not run out of unique IPv6 addresses on your server for (more math):
58,494 years * 65,536 /64 per /48 = 3,833,478,626

So, at a run rate of 10 million containers per second, a standard /48 that you would allocate to a data center for docker hosts it would take you 3.8 billion years to consume all the IPv6. I think that will cover almost every company that ever needs to run Docker containers and have them be unique at a point in time. Best part, we don't have to modify port numbers, they are globally unique, we can lay down a predictive algorithm for building out the lower /64 and we don't have to deal with any layer 2 at all, it is all routing! Seems like Nirvana to me.
- Ed

Post Interop Las Vegas - 2015 - IPv6, SanDisk and Tech Field Day - What more could you want?

I had a great time in Las Vegas at Interop and was thrilled so many folks attended my IPv6 workshop. To top it off, my workshop made the top 8 list for this year, so may thanks to those that filled out the surveys and for the positive scores too. You can see all the other great workshop presenters and topics on the InformationWeek site. They also published the top 10 session for the regular Interop conference (I did not present a session this year, only the 4 hour workshop) and that can be found on the InformationWeek site also.

In addition to all the Interop activities, I also was able to participate in some Tech Field Day fun with my friends Stephen Foskett and Tom Hollingsworth. I sat in on an interesting SanDisk presentation that you can check out on YouTube. What was particularly enlightening for me was how the storage industry is being turned upside down right now, just in a totally different way than what is happening in networking. I think this is really impactful because those are two of the three major pillars on which virtualization and cloud sit atop. What long term effect this will have is debatable but SanDisk sure does seem to be thinking ahead about how companies can change how they leverage their storage. It is worth watching, especially since they take the time to explain things so even a network engineer like me can understand what the heck is going on.

There were also a few Tech Field Day Extras - specifically Roundtables about white box switches and my favorite topic, IPv6. You can check those out on the Tech Field Day website.

Overall, I was very happy with the time I invested in attending Interop. I saw so many friends and colleagues at the event. It really has a lot of fantastic industry people attending, speaking, sponsoring and working the expo floor. I would encourage you to add Interop to your conference list if it isn't on there already. Join me in Las Vegas next year for Interop, I plan on being there!
- Ed

Interop - Las Vegas - How to Get Up and Running With IPv6 -- Without Destroying Your IPv4 Network!

I have been building out the content for my workshop at Interop in Las Vegas at the end of April and I am pretty excited about what I get to cover for folks attending. I will be doing a workshop titled "How to Get Up and Running With IPv6 -- Without Destroying Your IPv4 Network!" and (no surprise) it is how to really start using IPv6. I encourage you to sign up for my workshop and for Interop, it is a great show and the individuals presenting and running the event are really unique industry insiders. You can get a registration discount of 25% by using SPEAKERVIP! when registering for the event. You have until Friday, April 25th to use that code, after that you pay full price! My workshop is on Monday, April 27th from 1 to 4:30PM followed by a small reception.

To give you a taste, here are some of the items I will cover:
The Big Picture - You need an IPv6 Plan
 Assessment, Training, Planning and Design, Proof of Concept, Deployment

Worksheets for the following:
 Fundamentals, Addressing, Prefix, DHCPv6, DNS, Happy Eyeballs, Mobile and Cloud

Additional overview worksheets on:
Technical and Operational Worksheet
Planning and Design Worksheet

Also, review of key design differences between IPv6 and IPv4 covering things like:
Network address planning
Where is my NAT?
Protocol translation - transition technologies

Finally, wrap up with some demos and a limited lab (due to resource constraints)

And my Interop abstract (so you know what is published) is:

The most common IPv6 deployment is in conjunction with an existing IPv4 network. However, knowing the operational differences between IPv4 and IPv6 can be difficult, and understanding how hosts on your network will behave can be an even bigger challenge.

This workshop focuses on getting IPv6 up and working on an existing IPv4 network, including how to understand what you've deployed and how to use some common tools with IPv6. We'll look at typical frustrations such as setting the right IPv6 Router Advertisement flags, DHCPv6 settings, how ICMPv6 will impact your IPv6 deployment, and much more!

Attendees will:

• Learn how to set up and configure IPv6
• Determine the best operational settings for IPv6
• Look into common dual-stack challenges
• Review common tools to understand how IPv6 affects OS behavior

Who should attend:

• Network, security, storage, system and virtualization administrators, architects and designers who run and maintain IPv4 infrastructure and are looking to add IPv6. Also, those looking to build labs, proof of concepts or smaller deployments with IPv6.

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I look forward to seeing you at Interop, please don't be shy to come up and introduce yourself to me if you see me at the event. Also, I am more than happy to sign copies of my book if you happen to have it with you. I will have a few I will be giving away during my workshop too!
- Ed

RunAs Radio Show 411 - IPv6 in 2014

I was lucky enough to talk with Richard Campbell about IPv6 and how things had gone in 2014. We chat about a variety of things related to IPv6 and it is always and honor and great fun to be on RunAs Radio. Check out the show yourself at the RunAs Radio website.
Enjoy!
- Ed

New Posts on Infoblox IPv6 COE

I've been busy generating content for others and my blog has suffered as of late, I apologize for that. I do have some posts that might be of interest over on the Infoblox IPv6 Center of Excellence Community Blog site. Specifically, I have kicked off the year talking about what tasks you need to do for your IPv6 plan. I will update this post as the remaining blog posts come out.

The first was an overview talking about having a plan and can be found at:
https://community.infoblox.com/blogs/2014/10/28/first-steps-ipv6-adoption-having-plan

The next addresses assessments:
https://community.infoblox.com/blogs/2015/01/19/kick-2015-first-phase-your-ipv6-plan-assessment

There will be future posts that cover the following:
Training
Planning and Design
Proof of Concept
Deployment
Operate

I have also been busy developing a Pluralsight course on, surprise, IPv6. I will post a link to that once it is completed. Don't forget you can always pick up my book if you want more in-depth knowledge around IPv6 and Windows. My book is available on Amazon in print or kindle at http://tinyurl.com/Practical-IPv6 - if you like the book please leave me a review, I'm always interested in hearing back from readers.

In the mean time, I will try and add some more content around private cloud, automation and containers as I have been spending time working and exploring those topics for work.
- Ed