6NET was a three-year European IST project to demonstrate that continued growth of the Internet can be met using new IPv6 technology. The project built and operated a pan-European native IPv6 network connecting sixteen countries in order to gain experience of IPv6 deployment and the migration from existing IPv4-based networks. The network was used to extensively test a variety onew IPv6 services and applications, as well as interoperability with legacy applications. This allowed practical operational experience to be gained, and provided the possibility to test migration strategies,which are important considering that IPv4 and IPv6 technologies will need to coexist for several years.

6NET involved thirty-five partners from the commercial, research and academic sectors and presented a total investment of 18 million; 7 million of which came from the project partners themselves, and 11 million from the Information Society Technologies Programme of the European Commission. The project commenced on 1st January 2002 and was due to finish on 31 December 2004. However, the success of the project meant that it was granted a further 6 months, primarily for dissemination of the project’s findings and recommendations. The network itself was decommissioned in January 2005, handing over the reigns of pan-European native IPv6 connectivity to GÉANT.

The principal objectives of the project were:

• Install and operate an international pilot IPv6 network with both static and mobile components in order to gain a better understanding of IPv6 deployment issues.
• Test the migration strategies for integrating IPv6 networks with existing IPv4 infrastructure.
• Introduce and test new IPv6 services and applications, as well as legacy services and applications on IPv6 infrastructure.
• Evaluate address allocation, routing and DNS operation for IPv6 networks.
• Collaborate with other IPv6 activities and standardisation bodies.
• Promote IPv6 technology.

The project had important collaborations with other IPv6 activities such as the Euro6IX project and the IPv6 Cluster, and contributed to standardisation bodies such as the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and GGF (Global Grid Forum). 6NET also played an important role in promoting IPv6 technology at both the national and international level.

6NET has demonstrated that IPv6 is deployable in a production environment. Not only does it solve the shortage of addresses, but it also promises a number of enhanced features which are not an integral part of IPv4. The success of the testbed spurred the existing GÉANT and NORDUnet networks to move to dual-stack operation earlier than anticipated, and in turn, encouraged many NRENs (National Research and Education Networks) to offer production IPv6 services as well. Having served its purpose, and with 6NET partners now having native IPv6 access via GÉANT, the 6NET testbed was decommissioned in January 2004. During its lifetime, the 6NET network was used to provide IPv6 connectivity to a number of worldwide events, including IST 2002 (November 2002), IETF 57 (July 2003), IST 2003 (November 2003) and the Global IPv6 Service Launch (January 2004), showing that it is ready for full deployment.

The experience gained during the project has been turned into a number of ‘cookbooks’ (project deliverables) aimed at network administrators, IT managers, network researchers and anyone else interested in deploying IPv6. All project documentation: deliverables, papers, presentations, newsletters etc., are freely available on the 6NET website:

http://www.6net.org/

The information contained in this book is taken from the project’s deployment cookbooks and other deliverables. Since each cookbook/deliverable generally concentrates only on specific IPv6 features or deployment scenarios (e.g. site transition, multicast, mobility, DHCP, routing etc.), we believe that providing all the important information in a single reference book is much more preferable to the reader than negotiating our multitude of project deliverables.

We hope you find this reference book informative and that it helps smooth your IPv6 deployment process. Please bear in mind that this book is a ‘snapshot in time’ and by the very nature of IPv6 protocols and their implementations it is easy for the information in these chapter to become out of date. Nevertheless, through the 6DISS project many ex-6NET partners will endeavour to keep the information up to date and you can freely download the latest electronic version from the 6NET website:

http://www.6net.org/book/

The 6NET project was co-ordinated by Cisco Systems and comprised: