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UNH-IOL Puts IPv6 to the Test(Wireless News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), an independent proving ground for new technologies, recently completed a series of multi-vendor tests that assessed how well basic enterprise networking fares on Internet protocol version 6, the next incarnation of the IP networking standard. Using the Moonv6 network, 13 companies tested networking-intensive office applications such as Adobe's Dreamweaver and Microsoft's MeetingPlace over the new protocol. The testing also essayed many of the essential components of basic enterprise networking, such as file sharing, printing and security. Still to be put to trial is e-mail and a greater variety of enterprise QoS and network management tools. "Most issues were implementations, not the protocol, and this suggests that for common system admins there will be something of a learning curve in setting up for IPv6," said Erica Johnson, IPv6 consortium manager at the UNH-IOL. "We've hit the core, but we've only scratched the surface of IPv6 for enterprise IT systems. The Moonv6 network is up 24/7 and anyone with applications can connect to it. As we keep seeing, there are always going to implementation hurdles, lessons learned, proprietary applications and devices that don't support it yet, so the more testing, the sooner, the better." The list of participating companies included major enterprise IT vendors such as Adobe, Alcatel-Lucent, Command Information, Counterpath, Hewlett Packard, Hexago, Ixia, Juniper, Konica Minolta, Microsoft and Xerox. The university lab partnered with the Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland to extend the testing into less familiar territory. This portion of the testing focused on an innovation not possible with today's Internet called Site Multihoming by IPv6 Intermediation, or SHIM6 for short. Of special interest in financial transactions, SHIM6 is an IPv6-only failover function that kicks in if one side of a link goes down, automatically rerouting the connection without affecting the download in progress. IPv6 is the successor to the current IP infrastructure that underlies data in today's Internet and enterprise networks. The new protocol greatly enlarges the pool of IP addresses needed to network new servers, laptops, phones, printers, etc. While some geographies have already run out of IP addresses, it has been predicted that North America will face IPv4 address space exhaustion between the years 2010-2012. IPv6's increased address space is expected to make better use of emerging technology areas like VoIP, video and various interactive multimedia applications as well. Other benefits touted for IPv6 include simplified network architecture, an increase in new services, and increased number of network nodes, built-in security, and the ability to "plug and play" devices that are IPv6 enabled. After first getting involved with the protocol in the late 1990s, the UNH-IOL has been actively testing and debugging IPv6 devices on the Moonv6 network since 2003. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) ((Distributed on behalf of 10Meters via M2 Communications Ltd - http://www.m2.com)) ((10Meters - http://www.10meters.com)) Copyright 2007 Wireless News |