September 25, 2013 archive

Sep 25

2 Excellent New Tutorials On IPv6 Address Planning From ISOC and SURFnet

Example Router TopologyHow should you plan out your IPv6 addresses? What is the best way to allocate IPv6 address blocks to your various networks and subnets? What factors should you be considering when mapping out a plan for how best to use your IPv6 addresses?  These are all great questions and were in fact topics I covered in two recent IPv6 webinars – but we’re very pleased to announce two recent documents that go into this topic in great detail (and we’ve added both to our new IPv6 Address Planning page):

IPv6 Address Planning: Guidelines for IPv6 address allocation

The first IPv6 address planning document is one written for our Deploy360 site by Tim Rooney at BT Diamond IP after he was reviewing our IPv6 content roadmap and contacted us about writing this document for our web portal.  It’s a brand new document that we’re publishing for the first time today.  Tim does an excellent job walking through the issues around why you need an IPv6 address plan, how you should set one up, suggestions for how to number subnets and then several examples of exactly how you could allocate addresses to subnets based on a plan.  He concludes with some recommendations and observations.

It’s a solid document that I think will be quite useful for anyone starting out with IPv6.  We greatly appreciate Tim’s contribution to our site and thank him for the time he spent on the document.  (And we’re always open to new contributors!)

SURFnet: Preparing An IPv6 Address Plan

In a bit of synchronicity, the great team over at SURFnet came out with a new version of their IPv6 address planning document last week.   They first came out with this document in 2011 and with the help of RIPE NCC made it available in both Dutch and English.  In this new and improved version they’ve changed the flow of the text a bit and added in more information.  The document starts out with a brief review of IPv6 addressing and then gets into the details of creating an address plan. It provides some excellent suggestions and recommendations and includes some detailed examples of how you could structure an address plan.  The document also contains sections around how you manage the assignment of IPv6 addresses out to end devices (hosts).

This document, too, is an outstanding document for anyone getting started with IPv6.  Thanks to the SURFnet team for coming out with this new version!

While the two documents cover similar ground, they both offer provide different and useful perspectives on how to create an IPv6 address plan.  The combination of the two documents will be quite helpful for anyone looking to get started with IPv6.

We strongly encourage you to read both documents (and please do share them with others!) and provide any comments and feedback back to the authors.  We’ve added them to a new IPv6 Address Planning page where we will also be adding other resources on this topic (and please let us know if you are aware of some resources we should consider adding). Now… let’s get those IPv6 networks deployed!

Sep 25

SURFnet: Preparing An IPv6 Address Plan

SURFnet's IPv6 Addressing GuideThe team at SURFnet has created an excellent document called “Preparing an IPv6 Address Plan” that walks through the many different steps and concerns that you need to consider when creating a plan.  The September 2013 version of the document is available from SURFnet’s website.

After briefly touching on the basics of IPv6 addressing and also the idea of simply not having an IP address plan, the document gets into a very detailed description of how you might go about creating an IPv6 addressing plan.  It includes several examples and some excellent recommendations. The document concludes with some good suggestions around managing and addressing hosts (end-user devices) now that you have your address plan.

It’s an excellent document and it is great that SURFnet has made this available and has continued to update it with the latest information.

Please visit our IPv6 Address Planning page for other similar resources that can assist with developing an IPv6 address plan.

Sep 25

How To Get IPv6 Addresses

If you want to obtain IPv6 addresses for your network the process to do so depends upon the type of network you operate.  If you are a home user or operator of a business network, you will want to start with the local Internet Service Provider (ISP) who provides your access to the Internet.  If they are unable to provide you with IPv6 addresses, you will need to explore one of the various IPv6 transition mechanisms such as IPv6 tunneling.

If you are an Internet Service Provider or a large enterprise network operator and want to obtain large blocks of IPv6 addresses, you will need to contact the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) that services the geographic region in which you are based.  Information can be found at these links:

More information about the IPv6 programs and policies of the Regional Internet Registries may be found at the Numbering Resource Organization (NRO).

Regional Internet Registries

Sep 25

IPv6 Address Planning

When starting out with IPv6, it is helpful to plan out how you are going to allocate your IPv6 addresses across your various networks and subnets.  Reasons for creating an IPv6 address plan include:

  • Routing tables can be smaller and more efficient
  • Security policies can be easier to implement
  • Application policies can be implemented
  • Network management/provisioning can be easier
  • Troubleshooting can be easier, particularly with visual identification
  • Easier scaling as more devices or locations are added

We have several resources available to assist you in thinking about and creating an IPv6 Address Plan:

As far as obtaining IPv6 addresses, your best place to start is with contacting your Internet Service Provider (ISP) who provides your Internet access. If you are with an ISP or a large network operator, you  will need to contact your Regional Internet Registry (RIR) to find out their process for obtaining IPv6 address blocks.

If your ISP is not able to provide you with IPv6 addresses and you are not eligible to obtain IPv6 addresses from an RIR you will need to explore one of the IPv6 transition mechanisms such as tunneling.