Presenting on IPv6 at InterOp in Las Vegas - April 3, 2014

I was delighted when my colleague Ethan Banks (of PacketPushers fame) asked me to present on IPv6 at InterOp. The presentation audience is a slightly different for me so I have had to change some of my content and get a bit more creative, all good things. The title for my session is:
Getting Serious about IPv6: Go Big or Go Home

It is really focused at Enterprise Network Managers, Directors of IT and CTO types rather then the typical networking nerd that might attend an IPv6 session. I felt it was important to start explaining IPv6 to these professionals so they really understand what is happening in the industry. For the session the key takeaways are:
    Why you need to move to IPv6 for your Enterprise
    The impact to your business of staying on IPv4 only
    What to do next to get started with IPv6 in your Enterprise 

My session is on Thursday, April 3rd at 4pm and the show is in Las Vegas. I encourage you to register for the event not just because I am presenting (though that should be good enough on its own!) but also because of the impressive list of other speakers.

I believe InterOp makes the contents available after the event so I will update the blog when that happens. I hope to see you at my session!
- Ed

Update: apparently InterOp has a really good discount going on right now until March 17th for the show. If you use the discount code 40PERCENT you will get, surprise, 40% off the total access pass. 

Getting your first IPv6 address allocation from ARIN

The American Registry for Internet Numbers or ARIN has put out a great little PDF you can download on how to get started with getting your first IPv6 allocation. For those who have not done this it can be useful to have an outline about what to expect in the process and this provides that.
It is interesting to note that they give the same site to prefix allocation chart as their website which is outlined below:

Number of Sites	Prefix Block Size
1	/48
2-12	/44
13-192	/40
193-3,072	/36
3,072 - 49,152	/32

You can find the details for how this actually works on the ARIN website.

I would expect most enterprises to fit in the /40 to /36 category as ARIN's definition of a site is relatively broad. They did this intentionally and as you can see in the definitions that follow, you can argue your single work from home user would classify as a site.

From ARIN's website:
"6.5.8.2.1. Standard sites
A site is a discrete location that is part of an organization’s network. A campus with multiple buildings may be considered as one or multiple sites, based on the implementation of its network infrastructure. For a campus to be considered as multiple sites, reasonable technical documentation must be submitted describing how the network infrastructure is implemented in a manner equivalent to multiple sites.
An organization may request up to a /48 for each site in its network, and any sites that will be operational within 12 months.

6.5.8.2.2. Extra-large sites
In rare cases, an organization may request more than a /48 for an extra-large site which requires more than 16,384 /64 subnets. In such a case, a detailed subnet plan must be submitted for each extra-large site in an organization’s network. An extra-large site qualifies for the next larger prefix when the total subnet utilization exceeds 25%. Each extra-large site will be counted as an equivalent number of /48 standard sites."

Remember, if you run labs, dev and test networks that might have to simulate an entire site then you need to include each of those as sites and not as a single /64 subnet in your design and request to ARIN. Otherwise you will not have enough address space to build out those test environments that you might require and you will have to go back to request address space.
- Ed

The IPv6 Show - IPv6 in the Enterprise? Why Bother?

Bruce Sinclair with gogo6 is running a great podcast on IPv6. The IPv6 Show has had some fantastic guests already like Scott Hogg, Joe Klein, Jeff Doyle and Rene Paap.

I've personally really enjoyed listening to the show and I encourage you to listen to past shows and to follow the podcast if you are interested in IPv6 at all. I was fortunate enough to have Bruce ask me onto the show so please have a listen.

Podcast: Download for a copy and to play on iOS devices
Click here to Subscribe to "The IPv6 Show" on iTunes!

I am looking forward to hearing from other IPv6 industry experts that Bruce interviews in the future on the show, I think it is one to keep any eye on!
- Ed

Practical IPv6 for Windows Administrators is available!

My book Practical IPv6 for Windows Administrators from Apress is officially published and available to order. You can order a printed copy from Amazon, or a Kindle version and Barnes and Noble has the printed version available now too (a Nook version should be available shortly.)

A thank you to Richard Hicks and Jason Jones who did the technical review for the book. They were critical in so many ways and their feedback and honest opinions about things in the book were really valuable to me. The end result is much improved due to their hard work.

I also want to thank Jonathan Gennick my Lead Editor and Ana Panchoo my Coordinating Editor, both with Apress, for helping make the book writing process easy (as easy as you can make writing a book.) They really were fantastic to work with and considering this book was produced in 5 months they really had to work hard to make it all happen. If you are a technical author or want to become one I would recommend Apress. You can review through their materials on their Write For Us section of their website.

Finally, please don't be shy and let me know if the book was on target. I worked on trying to solve some of the design, operational and practical issues that come up with figuring out how to get started with IPv6 and Windows. There is always room for improvement so let me know!
- Ed

IPv6 is like global warming

I recently was on twitter going back and forth with some colleagues on the topic of IPv6 (shocking, I know) and I said the following:

"IPv6 is like global warming, sea level rise is easy to ignore (or deny) but it will impacts a crazy number of people"

This resonates with me. The fact that regardless of how you feel about global warming (man made, natural fluctuation, curse from a $deity) the effects are what matters. There is sea level rise (it is measurable, we are measuring it, it is going up) and given the fact that a very high percentage of the world populations live close or on the edges of the oceans they are going to be impacted.

There are practical ways to deal with this. Most agree the sea level change isn't going to jump up 3+ feet overnight (outside of storm surges, etc.) so it is possible to plan and take corrective action. There are cities and governments in the world where this is happening today. They are being proactive and realize it will take a long time to get everyone to adjust to this new change (building codes, zoning, etc.) There are also those that are not taking these actions. Finally there are those unfortunate few who can't address it even if they wanted to, like some small remote islands.

We won't know the final outcome and impact until years later. Who did the right strategic move and planned, implemented and were ready for the eventual sea level rise? It is analogous to those who plan, implement and deploy IPv6. In both situations you can wait. But eventually you must deal with the issue. Will you be ready when the sea level rise happens? Will you able to execute on IPv6 when your company needs you to?

So perhaps the global warming community can say:
"Global warming is like IPv6, IPv4 depletion is easy to ignore (or deny) but it will impact a crazy number of people"

How is that for turning it back around!
- Ed