Patrick Grossetete, manager of product management at Cisco, is responsible for a suite of Cisco IOS software technologies, including IPv6 and IP Mobility. He manages Cisco participation in the IPv6 Forum and is a regular speaker at conferences and industry events. Patrick is coauthor of Deploying IPv6 Networks (Cisco Press). In June 2003, he received the “IPv6 Forum Internet Pioneer Award” at the San Diego summit. Patrick joined Cisco in 1994 as a consulting engineer. Before joining Cisco, Patrick worked at Digital Equipment Corporation as a consulting engineer and was involved with network design and deployment. He received a degree in computer science from the Control Data Institute, Paris, France.
Ciprian Popoviciu, PhD, CCIE No. 4499, is a technical leader at Cisco Systems with more than ten years of experience in data and Voice over IP communications technologies. As part of the Cisco Network Solution Integration Test Engineering (NSITE) organization, he focuses on the architecture, design, and validation of large IPv6 network deployments in direct collaboration with service providers and enterprises worldwide. Ciprian is a regular speaker or chair at conferences and industry events and contributes to various technology publications. He is an active contributor to the IETF standards, a senior member of IEEE, a member of several academic advisory boards, and a coauthor of Deploying IPv6 Networks (Cisco Press). Ciprian holds a BS from Babes-Bolyai University, Romania, and an MS and Ph.D. from the University of Miami.
Fred Wettlingmanages architecture and strategic planning for Bechtel Corporation, one of the world’s premier engineering, construction, and project management companies. Fred is one of 20 Bechtel Fellows out of a population of 40,000. He has extensive experience in project and office startups, major technology transitions, innovations, and technology operations at 20+ Bechtel projects and offices. Fred is active within and outside of Bechtel promoting standards-based technology interoperability that supports global enterprise business needs. Fred is a member of the IEEE, North American IPv6 Task Force, and IPv6 Forum, and is executive director of the IPv6 Business Council. He served as the Network Applications Consortium (NAC) chairman for five years. Fred was selected as one of the 50 most powerful people in networking by Network World from 2003 to 2006. He is a senior member of the Cisco Enterprise and Federal Technical Advisory Boards and served on the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) Next Generation Network Task Force as a subject matter expert.
Introduction Introduction
The continued evolution and operation of the Internet as a truly global asset faces multiple challenges: impending exhaustion of the global IPv4 address space, new operating systems and applications, next generation infrastructures, and demand for always-on connectivity for a growing variety of devices. The requirements of a new Internet, the pressure generated by the lack of resources for the existing one, and government mandates are just a few drivers for the soaring interest in IPv6 and the demand for information related to the protocol. The technological aspects of the next generation Internet protocol have been diligently covered through a wide range of publications. Considering, the potential implications of early versus late IPv6 adoption, there is significant interest in information related to adoption strategies, to business perspectives on IPv6 use, and to concrete experiences.
The global impact of a technology or a set of technologies on the larger population and the society as a whole can truly be evaluated years after its creation when enough data has been accumulated for a proper analysis. As an example, the unprecedented, wide range of advances made in all domains of life (arts, education, politics, philosophy, literature, and science) during the Renaissance period, one of the most prolific periods in human history, can be traced to the adoption of one technology: printing. Gutenberg's invention increased the amount of documented knowledge and information by reducing the costs of capturing it. More importantly, printing dramatically increased accessibility to knowledge and information by reducing the replication costs. One technology enabled human civilization to build its knowledge base and to tap into a significantly larger pool of talent. These scaled-up resources were the information and communication infrastructure that enabled innovations in all aspects of human life.
In itself, the "moveable type" technology, as Gutenberg called it, was not the prize but just the enabler. Gutenberg's enterprise defaulted shortly after a promising start but it enabled an information revolution that was the catalyst of many other revolutions. The often drawn parallel between the discovery and history of printing and that of the Internet highlights the same characteristic. The Internet represents the enabler of today's information revolution, changing the way we live, play, learn, and work.
A close evaluation of the two information revolutions highlights a very important difference. The printing-based revolution was to a certain extent asymmetric—it somewhat reduced the cost of producing content while it vastly reduced the cost of accessing content. This paradigm was further supported and expanded in scope through other media means such as radio and television. Although in its initial implementation stages the Internet appeared to do the same thing, as it matured, it enabled a more symmetric information revolution by dramatically decreasing the costs of producing content. The Internet is reducing the costs of producing and consuming information, and bringing together enough users to create an audience for any niche content. In addition, the Internet is providing its users with ubiquitous global access to information, removing the distance and time barriers faced in the past. The Internet has laid the foundation for a new and different information revolution. While traditional media such as newspaper, radio, and television cater to the mainstream, the Internet addresses new audiences and enables new means of communications and new business models.
It is important to make a clear distinction between the Internet and the applications that run over it. These applications are apparent to most of its users and are the true measure of the economic and societal impact of the Internet. With the exception of technologists, however, the terms Internet (infrastructure) and World Wide Web (application) are for most people interchangeable. While like many other technologies such as railroads, automobiles, and radio, the Internet inspired its own economic bubble, it survives, continues to grow, and provides the environment for truly valuable applications and services. This infrastructure and its evolution is the focus of this book despite the necessary references to its uses.
From its initial deployment as a research network to its current state, the Internet as an infrastructure has seen the functionality of the devices, applications, and services deployed on it grow in direct relation to its capabilities, capacity, and scale:
Higher speeds: The Internet is leveraging newer technologies providing wired or wireless access with ever-increasing bandwidths and lower costs.
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Larger footprint: The "network of networks," as the Internet is known, continues to expand its geographical coverage and to include more and more businesses and people.
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Including more device types: The Internet evolved from interconnecting large mainframes with dumb terminals to connecting personal computers, mobile phones, and sensors.
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Always-on connectivity: Ubiquitous in nature, the Internet enables its users to communicate continuously regardless of their point of attachment.
To support Web 2.0, which encompasses the latest set of Internet-based applications and services, the infrastructure continues to evolve through the so-called Next Generation Networks. Web 2.0 is finally taking advantage of the Internet's true potential and distances by its immediate "people-to-people" collaborative environment from the technologies that expanded the information revolution started by printing. Web 2.0 is starting the next information revolution, and for that it requires an ever-increasing user base, individually addressable users, and symmetric (similar upstream and downstream bandwidth), always-on, mobile connections. Will the technology be able to cope with these demands?
Although today nobody could envisage a world without Internet connectivity, the original design of the Internet Protocol, the foundation of this infrastructure, did not foresee this level of adoption. IP simply does not have the resources to connect today's earth population let alone to support its growth over the coming years. Moreover, in an attempt to conserve resources, the Internet today lost the symmetry of its original brilliant design. This is why the time is high for a new version of the Internet Protocol, known as IPv6, a necessary evolution for this mature technology.
As is the case with any foundational, infrastructure technology, the importance and economic impact of this evolution might be difficult to measure. Although the upgrade is an inevitable process, misunderstanding its importance and delaying its planning and adoption can have a significant impact at micro- and macroeconomic levels. This is particularly the case with infrastructure technologies that benefit from very little attention from a market driven mostly by short-term delivery. The right perspective on the evolution of the infrastructure needs to be bootstrapped by strategic, global, and visionary thinking. On January 16, 2003, the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) was presented an IPv6 strawman proposal by John Chambers, who at the time was one of its members. In his letter to the council, Chambers stated:
We believe the United States needs a migration strategy built on a solid investigation of the issues surrounding IPv6 adoption, and therefore propose that the United States National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) recommend that the President establish a Task Force on IPv6 to develop a national policy on its adoption. Such a policy should cover the U.S. Federal government and the critical infrastructure industry sectors.
Despite weak market interest in IPv6 at that time, NIAC's catalytic initiative was followed by coordinated government efforts, highlighted by the 2003 DoD and the 2005 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) IPv6 mandates. These efforts led to increased IPv6 interest within the United States and helped reverse its falling behind other nations in terms of understanding and adopting the new protocol.
The goal of this book is to provide a global overview of the strategies that developed around the IPv6 adoption and the perspectives taken on it within various markets. Although several sections briefly cover some technical aspects of the protocol, the objective of the book is to complement the technological viewpoint offered by a growing number of publications in the market with a business perspective. IPv6 adoption drivers and trends are reviewed at international, national, and business levels and some of the practical lessons learned are shared through concrete case studies. It turns out that a smooth and optimal integration of IPv6 depends as much on a good adoption strategy as it depends on understanding the technology.
Goals and Methods
This book intends to provide a business perspective on IPv6 and its adoption, complementing the many technical IPv6 titles available today. It also intends to provide the readers with some of the "whys" and the "whens" applied to IPv6 strategies and some of the "hows" discovered through implementation experience by various organizations, countries, and market segments around the world. If the clamor of IPv6 has reached your desk and you simply want to understand what the big deal is, this book will bring you up to speed.
To that end, the book will present you information that answers the following questions:
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In a nutshell, what are the real technical benefits of IPv6?
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What are some of the business and technical opportunities presented by IPv6?
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What IPv6 adoption strategies have emerged in various markets and throughout the world?
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