Beyond the deployment of IPv6 connectivity and services at Lancaster, there are a number of other considerations that must be made alongside it. The prime example of this is the operation and management aspects of the network that are necessary to ensure the safe and secure operation of both the IPv6 and IPv4 networks. In addition to this, another consideration that has yet to be fully addressed are the transitioning requirements of the IPv6 deployment and this will be considered here also.
Network Operations and Management Services
This area of the deployment actually encompasses a wide range of networking applications and technologies that support the management and safe operation of the network. Obviously, the impact of IPv6 deployment will be significant in this area and so it is necessary to consider each aspect of this in turn. This has yet to be fully assessed from the perspective of IPv6 deployment but summary of these areas include:
Firewalling
The addition of IPv6 on the campus backbone will necessitate the provision of IPv6 firewalling in addition to the existing IPv4 firewalls, this is already underway.
Security
This includes both intrusion detection and snooping software and both will need to be upgraded to support IPv6.
Management and Monitoring
A range of management and monitoring services are employed within the University and these will need to be upgraded to support IPv6. This process is also currently in progress.
Secure Remote Access
Remote access to the university is provided via a VPN server that is available to both staff and students. While the campus is still dual stack, this will in all likelihood not be upgraded but an IPv6 VPN service may be provided in the future.
Transitioning Approach
Due to the IPv6 deployment at Lancaster being dual stack, specific transitioning solutions are not necessary at this point in time. Indeed, our existing tunnelled connections will shortly be replaced with native production links thanks to the deployment efforts made to date and since this is going to be deployed from end-to-end, interoperation mechanisms are also largely unnecessary at this stage.
There has however been some discussion of specific scenarios where IPv6-only connections may be needed at some point in the future and as part of our deployment study it would be wise not to rule this out as a possibility. As such, we will briefly outline the mechanisms that may be considered for deployment at Lancaster in the future, either to offer connectivity to isolated IPv6 subnets or to provide IPv4 interoperation to IPv6-only subnets.
To provide IPv6 connectivity, a number of tunnelling mechanisms may be deployed depending on the circumstances. Internal tunnelling will be largely unnecessary since the campus supports dual stack but external connectivity may be supported via 6to4 or perhaps tunnel brokers. Likewise, since IPv6- only networks have not been deployed to date, interoperation mechanisms are not necessary but in the event that they do become deployed, TRT (with a suitable range of ALGs) or DSTM seem the most obvious solutions.