How prepared is APNIC to deal with the impending IPv4 exhaustion?
Is a transition to IPV6 the only solution? Are the transition costs going to be high?The APNIC community has established the policies needed for the continuance of IPv4 allocations to support IPv6 deployment and we have been active in providing all necessary information. Our IPv6 policies make address space easy to obtain, and our IPv6 processes have been streamlined to ensure quick and efficient services. IPv6 policies and systems are well established and stable now. We have implemented our own transition so that our services are fully available on IPv6 and we have developed training and educational materials. We have been working hard to encourage and support our community through the transition and we will go on doing this in 2011 and future years while the IPv6 transition is underway.
If we want to continue to operate a network at the price, performance and functional flexibility that is offered by packet switched networks, then the search for alternatives to IPv6 is necessarily constrained to a set of technologies that offer approaches that are, at a suitably abstract level, isomorphic to IP.
However, from abstract observations to a specific protocol design is never a fast or easy process, and the lessons from the genesis of both IPv4 and IPv6 point to a period of many years of design and progressive refinement to come up with a viable approach. In our current context any such redesign is not a viable alternative to IPv6, given the time frame of IPv4 address exhaustion. It’s unlikely that such an effort would elicit a substitute to IPv6, and it’s more likely that such an effort may lead towards an inevitable successor to IPv6, if we dare to contemplate networking technologies further into the future.
Other approaches exist, based around application level gateways and similar forms of mapping of services from one network domain. Like it or not, the pragmatic observation of the present situation is that we don’t have a choice here and that there are no viable substitutes.
What trends do you foresee in IPv6 architecture and deployment? Telecom Engineering Center plans to release IPv6 standards for India sometime soon. What are some key issues related to standards that are likely to crop up?
IPv6 deployment will naturally accelerate now for a smooth transition. Many ISPs are already providing IPv6 services and users may be using IPv6 in many cases without even knowing it.
However, manufacturers need to provide IPv6 support in any and all equipment, which can connect, to the Internet and software developers also need to add support in many cases. This is where standards will come into play.
The Indian government has drawn up a roadmap for moving the country over to IPv6 and it plans to switch all government departments by 2012. What are some of the roadblocks that you see on the way?
All telecom and Internet service providers (ISPs) are required to become IPv6-compliant by December 2011 and offer IPv6 services from then on in India. As part of the roadmap, the government has also decided to form an IPv6 Task Force in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode for the timely implementation of IPv6 in the country. In addition, government agencies must adopt the new version of the protocol by March 2012.
The transition will pose several challenges. The timing of the process, determining what hardware and software capabilities exist and then planning upgrades, finding and retaining trained staff, security and stability issues that may result from new systems and new or under trained staff will be crucial.
With India looking to focus on the broadband revolution, what opportunities do you see paving the way ahead with IPv6?
The specific opportunity is to leapfrog new network deployments directly to IPv6, without any intermediate technologies that need to be upgraded or replaced. The more general opportunity is in ubiquitous Internet deployment and ample address space to implement state-of-the-art Internet services, now and in the future.
About 52 million urban Indians were active Internet users in September 2010, according to a report released jointly by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, and research firm IMRB International. Active users are those who have used the Internet at least once a month. A move to IPv6 will give a boost to Internet adoption in the country. A lot of equipment like refrigerators, air conditioners and television sets will come onto the IPv6 network and be controlled remotely, creating a potentially large market in India. IPv6 will address the revolution of M2M applications.
Please tell us about your plans for India. Will any R&D or training centers be set up here in the near future?
APNIC provides services to the entire Asia Pacific region, such as address allocation, resource quality assurance and maintaining registrations. In India, we have always concentrated on supporting local organizations by making our expertise and funding available, whether through training or Internet infrastructure deployment. Back in 2009, we launched our e-learning interactive classes that deliver live online tutorials to Indian members.
Since we handle the monitoring of IP address allocation across the entire region from our headquarters in Brisbane, we don’t need R&D centers in specific locations.
APNIC has also supported NIXI in the deployment of a Test Traffic Measurement (TTM) node in India, which provides some vital data for the South Asian region. A key benefit of the TTM systems is that the data can assist local organizations in developing the cheapest and most effective plans for improvement with the ultimate goal of reducing their reliance on overseas service providers.
with Paul Wilson, Director General, Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) talked to Heena Jhingan about the opportunities created by the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 and the factors that will enable a smooth transition from one to the other
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