A number of middleware and user applications were developed or ported by the 6NET project. These included the SIP-based telephony system (including a PSTN gateway), the AccessGrid conferencing tool (including an IPv4-IPv6 gateway), IPv6 versions of the IBM WebSphere e-business applications, an IPv6 version of the FLUTE multicast file transfer tool, and MIPv6-based video streaming for PDAs. The 6NET project also created IPv6 versions of the Globus Toolkit (GT3.x) which is used to develop Grid-aware applications (e.g., IPv6 WeatherStation and eProtein), and the Open H.323 Toolkit, used to develop an IPv6 version of GnomeMeeting. Other network management tools such as NetSNMP, MRTG, OpenEye, Smokeping and Weathermap have been developed or ported for traffic measurement and visualisation purposes.

Deliverable D5.1 [D5.1] of the 6NET project listed the applications initially identified as candidates to run on the 6NET IPv6 network. Since the development and porting of applications to support IPv6 is not a static activity, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to capture the ever-evolving status of the different applications mentioned in a single document.

Therefore, the Applications workpackage of 6NET decided that the applications list and current status would be in the form of a web page. This approach enables application owners to keep the status of their porting effort up to date and additionally allows interested users to keep track of the status, knowing that it is more up to date than a project deliverable downloaded from a web site or indeed, this book.

The up-to-date list of 6NET applications is therefore available at the following address:
http://apps.6net.org/WP5Apps (Figure 11-1 shows a partial screenshot). This site also provides the results of the trials performed on each application through Test Evaluation Forms (TEFs) according to the methodology described in Deliverable D5.5 [D5.5].

Instead of listing those applications available on the above website, this chapter outlines the important changes that IPv6 brings to network APIs in C and other programming languages. This will be of interest to deployers of IPv6 looking to develop new or port existing applications for their organisation.