IPv6 Trials on UK Academic Networks
The United Kingdom Education & Research Networking Association (UKERNA)
manages the UK national research network backbone, and many advanced
network services that run across it. The network, JANET,
in its latest version, SuperJANET4, featuring 10Gbit/s
connectivity between eight core points of presence (C-PoPs).
As part of its advanced network deployment, UKERNA is rolling out dual-stack
IPv6 networking on its core network and the associated BAR access routers.
This work is currently ongoing; the core routers are upgraded, and the access router upgrades should be complete early in 2004.
In parallel, UKERNA supports an IPv6 Experimental Service which, for
universities without direct native IPv6 access, features a
single Cisco 7500 series router through which tunnelled IPv6-in-IPv4
connectivity can be provided.
Any UK university wishing to gain IPv6 connectivity will be allocated
address space from the JANET IPv6
production address space (under 2001:0630::/35). Usage of the old 6bone
address prefixes (under 3ffe::/16) is being phased out.
UKERNA is a participant in
6NET, a three-year IPv6 research and deployment project with 35 partners,
including University of Southampton, UCL and Lancaster University.
The project, led by Cisco, has
deployed native IPv6 networking between at least 11 National Research and
Education Networks (NRENs).
The work of 6NET has led to an accelerated IPv6 deployment on GEANT, the
pan-European research network. Similar activities worldwide were
heralded at the Global IPv6 Launch Event held by the EC in Brussels in
January 2004.
UKERNA coordinates the IPv6 activity under the TERENA TF-NGN working group,
through representation by the University of Southampton.
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The UK academic IPv6 pilot is managed by
UKERNA.
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