Microsoft IPv6 Support

Happy New Year! It is hard to believe it is 2013 already.

While doing some research for my IPv6 PowerShell presentation I ran across a useful TechNet article that outlines the IPv6 Support in Microsoft Platforms and Services. It is helpful in determining what sort of troubleshooting and compatibility issues you may run into when deploying Microsoft technologies within your network. I recommend bookmarking this one.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/hh994905.aspx

In addition, I still recommend picking up Joseph Davies' excellent book, Understanding IPv6, 3rd Edition from Microsoft Press if you want to really understand how Windows uses IPv6. Full disclosure, I was the technical reviewer for the book. If you run into any errors in the book feel free to send me an email/tweet and I will get them passed along (shout out to Jeff Carrell who already caught one!)

Keep an eye out for a 3rd Edition of Silvia Hagen's IPv6 Essentials from O'Reilly Press later this year. Again, full disclosure, I am the technical reviewer for the 3rd edition also.
- Ed

Microsoft PowerShell IPv6 best practices notes

I just wanted to jot down some notes about some PowerShell commands to use for IPv6 best practices for servers and workstations in enterprise environments.

I recommend turning off all the transition technology solutions on Windows systems, specifically 6to4, ISATAP and Teredo (unless you have a specific use case and design that leverages them.) To address each of those the follow PowerShell commands can be used to do this.

For Windows 8 and Server 2012 PowerShell v3 use:
# - specific IPv6 PowerShell cmdlets
# - turn off 6to4
Set-Net6to4Configuration -State Disabled
#
# - turn off isatap
Set-NetIsatapConfiguration -State Disabled
#
# - turn off teredo
Set-NetTeredoConfiguration -Type Disabled
#

For Windows 7 and Server 2008R2 PowerShell v2 use:
# - specific IPv6 netsh commands - still work from PowerShell
# - turn off 6to4
netsh interface ipv6 6to4 set state disable
#
# - turn off isatap
netsh interface isatap set state disable
#
# - turn off teredo
netsh interface teredo set state type=Disabled

#

To validate the configurations use the following.
For Windows 8 and Server 2012 PowerShell v3 use:
# - check 6to4 state
Get-Net6to4Configuration
#
# - check isatap state
Get-NetIsatapConfiguration
#
# - check teredo state
Get-NetTeredoConfiguration
#

For Windows 7 and Server 2008R2 PowerShell v2 use:
# - check 6to4 state
netsh interface ipv6 6to4 show state
#
# - check isatap state
netsh interface ipv6 isatap show state
#
# - check teredo state
netsh interface teredo show state
#

I hope to be putting together some more useful cmdlets for folks to get best practice configurations pushed out in mass for platforms regarding IPv6, adding in firewall rules and protections and perhaps some extensions for routing and source address selection for enterprises to control behavior the way they want.
- Ed

gogoNETLive! 3 IPv6 Conference is a wrap

The 3rd annual gogoNETLive! IPv6 conference happened last week at San Jose State University. The line up of presenters was fantastic and all the presentations were video recorded so keep an eye out because in the next month or two those should hit the website. The content will be posted to the agenda page where the slides are already posted next to their respective presenter bios.

I'm sorry this post didn't go out prior to the event happening but work and trying to get things ready for the event itself kept me from getting a blog post up. I would personally like to thank Scott Hogg, Jeff Carrell, Sam Bowne and Mike Meyers for putting on the workshops (which are sponsored by the California IPv6 Task Force) that happened on Monday the 12th. Unfortunately these were not video recorded so if you did not attend the event then you missed out. I would also like to thank Yurie Rich for hosting the IPv6 Forum Silver and Gold certification testing at the event. It allowed a lot of folks the opportunity to get tested and certified.

If you absolutely need to attend an IPv6 event prior to the end of the year the only one left is the Texas IPv6 Task Force IPv6 Summit but it starts Nov 19th (day of this post) and is two days.

Otherwise, I suggest marking your calendar for April 17-19th, 2013 so you can attend the North American IPv6 Summit which is hosted by the Rocky Mountain IPv6 Task Force and is hosted in Denver, CO. It is the largest, most influential and likely the finest IPv6 event in North America and I am proud to say I am also involved with that event too.

I think 2012 really has been the year of IPv6, perhaps not from the deployment standpoint but certainly from the discussion and planning perspective. It is finally something that enterprises and service providers are able to build specific plans around deployment and operations and not feel they are totally bleeding edge for doing so. With the current momentum I think 2013 will only hold more promise for widespread deployment. The biggest challenge will continue to be education and closing the knowledge gap around IPv6.

So, if you want to be part of the in crowd and are living and/or working in California or for a California company feel free to send me an email - I'll be happy to send you a CAv6TF laptop sticker! (US only shipping is on us - outside US we will let you know the cost)

Happy holidays - now go deploy IPv6!
- Ed

IPv6 Video

Several IPv6 friends and colleagues of mine are featured in this video along with myself. The video does a nice job of overviewing IPv6 and why you need to pay attention to it. Enjoy!


- Ed

DevOps and the impact on traditional System, Storage and Network Admins

There has been more discussion lately on DevOps and how they able to demand higher wages and that it should be a position that traditional System, Storage and Network Admins should be striving for long term. I have a slightly different opinion. I think the number of individuals that actually fit in the DevOps category to be very small and this is by the definition itself. It is very difficult to achieve the mastery involved in being both proficient at System/Storage/Network plus extensively development experience in several languages. I'm not talking scripting (though those that are good at scripting can do some impressive stuff) but those that can actually open up the source code for an application and fix it or tweak it to fit their needs.

My thoughts and questions around this topic are do traditional System, Storage and Network Admins have anything to fear over this new category of Operations? My initial thoughts are no, the roles that DevOps are filling in my experience have been on more complex environments with unique need requirements. They are typically part of very small teams tasked with getting large automation or deployment done. They want very technical people supporting the operations of the environment who can work and debug any part of the stack.

So what impact is this having in the industry? I do think that System, Storage and Network Administrators are now having to learn a lot more about each others jobs. With virtualization such a huge part in the landscape of data centers the lines are blurred. One thing has become abundantly clear to me, automation and scripting are incredibly important for admins to have as a skill. In order to take advantage of all the tools for cloud services (public, private or hybrid) all of them require understanding and using effectively automation and scripting. So my personal short list is learning PowerShell, System Center (several of the products), Hyper-V and if time allows, Orchestrator. Did I mention I spend my time focused on networking? Those tools, along with their counter parts in VMware are increasingly becoming important to understand to deploy data center network architectures appropriately. Additionally, Puppet, Chef or cfengine would be good skills sets to add to my tool belt soon. If only I had more time! What is on your short list to learn and why?
- Ed