Fix6 – IPv6 News and info

On this lovely Friday we have an Q-A with Tim Stoop. Tim is the Managing director for Kumina which is, as you can read in the first question, an company focused on support for infrastructure, administration and hardware.

Please tell us a little about Kumina

Kumina supports infrastructure for large websites and other internet-related services. We do Linux system administration, and partner with other companies who provide hardware and network support. Kumina currently has three employees, of which two are founders and equal owners.

We’ve designed and implemented solutions for several large websites which need highly available infrastructure. Our customers include several Dutch companies and some companies from other European countries (currently the UK, Sweden and Denmark), some of which have a 24×7 support contract and an availability guarantee.

When and how did IPv6 began to be a part of Kumina?

We’ve often toyed with it ourselves, but when we had to redesign our internal servers last year and our hosting providers both were starting their IPv6 tests, we decided we wanted to be completely IPv6 ready. As a result, our complete infrastructure is dual stack, supporting both IPv4 and IPv6. The one exception is our PBX, because Asterisk only has rudementary support for IPv6.

Customers that we host ourselves are also IPv6 ready, but none really use their capabilities. Self-hosted customers are very dependent on the infrastructure of their hoster, none of whom have an IPv6 deployment yet. We, however, can now say we have enough experience with it to feel comfortable deploying it at a customer’s site.

What is the current status of IPv6 at Kumina?

We’re fully IPv6 ready, except for our PBX.

In what way do you expect to see IPv6 growth in the next couple of years for Kumina?

We expect more and more customers asking us to make their setups dual stack. IPv6 will become more and more prevalent, especially once the IPv4 address space is ‘full’. So in a few years time we expect all our customers to be dual stack.

Are there any things you would like to say about IPv6 in general?

It’s a bit of a shame that many of the larger providers are so slow in adopting it. If they had more support for it, I think IPv6 would be far more prevalent than it currently is. Essentially, it’s not that big a deal, mostly similar to IPv4 with a few additional hurdles.

Thanks Tim for your time and answers!

The Google over IPv6 program allows ISPs with good connectivity to request IPv6 access for most Google services. In about a week, we’ll be adding Google App Engine and the appspot.com domain to this program. This means that all App Engine apps will become accessible over IPv6 to anyone participating in the program!

For most people, this won’t require any changes to your code at all. If your App Engine code reads os.environ["REMOTE_ADDR"] in Python, or HttpServletRequest.getRemoteAddr() in Java, be aware that this value may be an IPv4 address, like “192.0.2.1″, or an IPv6 address, like “2001:db8::1″. Now is the time to verify that your code doesn’t make any IPv4-specific assumptions, so that your IPv6-ready users will have a seamless transition.

More info on http://googleappengine.blogspot.com

IPv6 Query is one of the very first iPhone applications that can resolve IPv6 Addresses. Because the high level iPhone SDK classes provided by Apple do not support IP version 6, they can not resolve host names. IPv6 Quert uses C to resolve DNS instead of the Cocoa
classes that refuse to return IPv6 addresses.

The app created by infinitycg will let you test host names for IPv6 support and also provides reference material.

The app costs $0.99 in Itunes and can be found under the Utilities categorie

Today we have a Q&A with Joost Tholhuijsen. Joost is the owner of Tholhuijsen Consultancy and an active member of the Dutch IPv6-Taskforce.

Please tell us a little about Tholhuijsen Consultancy

Tholhuijsen Consultancy assists medium and large organisations in network
migrations. We help international companies in selecting their WAN vendor
and solution, we lead IP renumbering projects and advise in broader IT
infrastructure issues.

When and how did IPv6 began to be a part of Tholhuijsen Consultancy?

Tholhuijsen Consultancy started to orientate on IPv6 in 1999, and in 2002
met with Vint Cerf on the subject. In 2009 IPv6 was adopted as one of the
main activities of Tholhuijsen Consultancy. For Syntens, an initiative of
the Dutch Minisitry of Economic Affairs we developed and IPv6 Workshop for
decision makers in small and medium Enterprises.

What is the current status of IPv6 at Tholhuijsen Consultancy?

Tholhuijsen Consultancy has its infrastructure running native IPv6 and
tunneled IPv6. To properly test the market situation one of the networks is
even native IPv6 only. And But Tholhuijsen Consultancy does see IPv6 not
only as part of it’s infrastructure, but more as part of its core business.
Training, creating practical awareness, creating information material and
advising and assisting in IPv6 integration are our day to day work. Via
www.ipv6specialisten.nl Tholhuijsen Consultancy strives to make practical
and skilled IPv6 specialists active in the market.

In what way do you expect to see IPv6 growth in the next couple of years for Tholhuijsen Consultancy?

Tholhuijsen Consultancy is a member of the Dutch IPv6 Task Force, which
foundation was commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in 2005. The
general purpose of the Task Force is to promote the adoption of IPv6. The
Task Force however has limited means to fullfill its role. Internationally
and nationally outside the official IPv6 promotional bodies number of
initiatives arise. Some important web-sites like Google and YouTube see it
as their responsibility to promote IPv6, and have made their sites IPv6
reachable. Others like Ebay’s Marktplaats strive to do so on a short term.
We expect that initiatives like these help in breaking the infamous
chicken-egg situation that some see as the main barrier for IPv6. Awareness
of the coming IPv4 shortage is rising, but even in the top 20 of best
visited web-sites in February 2010 it was still not at 100 per cent.

Are there any things you would like to say about IPv6 in general?

ICT infrastructures are run by people with broad responsibilities.
Stakeholders are users, management and last but not least controllers.
Implementing IPv6 is not trivial for all of these parties. The speed in
which IPv6 is adopted for this reason does not follow the aspirations of
IETF, IANA, ISOC etc. at the pace of these parties. Given that fact that
IPv6 is necessary, mature and promising, the point of no-return for IPv6 has
been passed some time ago, and organisations ignoring IPv6 might ignore
their role in the mid-term future.

Thank you for your time and your answers Joost and we hope to hear more of your work in the future.

A list of the most popular Dutch websites according to Alexa.com. We left out the websites that are not from the Netherlands.

There are 6 websites that are reachable by IPv6. But only 3 are dualstack on the main domainname. These websites are www.geenstijl.nl, www.spitsnieuws.nl and www.spele.nl.

Two of the 3 websites with dualstack IPv6 are hosted by Prolocation that offer IPv6 connectivity by their IPv6 Proxy

We will keep checking the list to see if more websites become reachable by IPv6.

The list:

Website	IPv6 on Domain	IPv6 on Subdomain	URL
hyves.nl
nu.nl
marktplaats.nl
telegraaf.nl			http://www.ipv6.telegraaf.nl
ing.nl
startpagina.nl
nos.nl
rabobank.nl
dumpert.nl
abnamro.nl
bol.com
funda.nl
tweakers.net
rtl.nl
geenstijl.nl			http://www.geenstijl.nl
fok.nl
buienradar.nl			http://www.buienradar.nl/
spele.nl			http://www.spele.nl
tvgids.nl
spitsnieuws.nl			http://www.spitsnieuws.nl
detelefoongids.nl
vi.nl
ad.nl
omroep.nl
nusport.nl
partyflock.nl
volkskrant.nl
upc.nl
web-log.nl
wehkamp.nl
ns.nl
ebay.nl
beslist.nl
kieskeurig.nl
anwb.nl
speurders.nl			http://www.ipv6.speurders.nl
9292ov.nl
uitzendinggemist.nl
voetbalzone.nl
nrc.nl
kpn.com
xs4all.nl			http://www.ipv6.xs4all.nl
knmi.nl			http://www6.knmi.nl
t-mobile.nl
dvhn.nl
belastingdienst.nl
nujij.nl
ah.nl
vodafone.nl

The new website of the Dutch .nl ccTLD registry does not only provide a fresh new look but also IPv6 connectivity!

:~$ host www.sidn.nl
www.sidn.nl has address 213.136.31.216
www.sidn.nl has IPv6 address 2001:7b8:c05::80:1

Lets hope more registry’s pick up on this and make their site available on IPv6

XS4ALL has enabled IPv6 on their roundcube webmail client. The IPv6 enabled webmail is available on a seperate domain:

https://roundcube.ipv6.xs4all.nl/

In this Q&A session were talking to Robin Elfrink, Robin is a Network Engineer at the Dutch ISP Introweb. And he will tell us about Introweb and their intrest in IPv6.

Please tell us a little about Introweb

Introweb was founded in 1995 as a subsidiary of electronics and security company. We provide connectivity (DSL and fiber), hosting and services as a package, specializing in high-availability and continuity. Introweb has about 35 employees. The way Introweb works has already resulted in a ISO27001 certification.

When and how did IPv6 began to be a part of Introweb?

We got our IPv6 prefix just before 2004, and have since been working to gain experience with it.

What is the current status of IPv6 at Introweb?

About three years ago we started to implement IPv6 in our backbone to
any equipment that supports it. Barring a single switch, our entire
network infrastructure is now IPv6-aware. When buying new equipment we
require IPv6 capabilities.

To promote the use of IPv6 by our clients, we offer a native IPv6 ADSL
connection for the symbolic amount of EUR (IPv) 6,- per month.

http://www.introweb.net/producten/categorien/internet_toegang/economy_adsl/ipv6_adsl.shtml

In what way do you expect to see IPv6 growth in the next couple of years for Introweb?

We see that more companies are experimenting with IPv6. We encourage
that, but it is difficult to quantify expectations. We are certainly ready.

Are there any things you would like to say about IPv6 in general?

There will be a moment in the not too distant future that parts of the
internet will be accessible only over IPv6. When that happens you’d
better be ready.

Thanks Robin for your time to anwser our questions! Keep up the good work!

The Vigor 2130 broadband router from Draytek supports IPv6. The WAN-IPv6-connection can be established via Static IPv6, DHCPv6 and TSPC. The price: 119 Euro. Full manual here.

Source: http://ipv6-or-no-ipv6.blogspot.com

DrayTek IPv6 development

DrayTek Vigor series routers (Vigor2130 series) have already received certification of IPv6 Ready logo program (Phase I – IPv6 Ready Silver logo) to honor our efforts to make devices meet requirements not only for today but also for tomorrow. On the other hand, this achievement represents how dedicated DrayTek commits to our customers. Phase I achievement is only the start point for DrayTek and we will keep customers posted about our future progress.

source: http://www.draytek.com

Data Centers Canada, a data center provider which operates, develops and manages Canadian real estate for the purpose of providing turn-key data center solutions including colocation and disaster recovery solutions for enterprises, today announced the availability of the IPv6 to its Toronto, Ontario Canada data centers.

IPv6, the next generation Internet protocol provides many benefits in comparison to the legacy IPv4 standard. The key benefit of IPv6 is that it addresses the current need for additional IP space as the current IPv4 architecture is close to world wide depletion.

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