Miguel PdL

The American Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have released a special publication NIST SP 500-267 A Profile for IPv6 in the U.S. Government – Version 1.0 (DRAFT), which aims to provide a profile to assist [US] federal agencies in developing plans to acquire and deploy products that implement Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).
The objective of the profile is to:
(a) define a simple taxonomy of common network devices;
(b) define their minimal mandatory IPv6 capabilities and identify significant options so as to assist agencies in the development of more specific acquisition and deployment plans; and,
(c) provide the basis to further define the technical meaning of specific policies.
The findings reported in the profile include
1. A core set of IPv6 standards & capabilities.
2. the need for product testing services to ensure the confidence and to protect the investment of early IPv6 adopters.
3. The current state of IPv6 security technologies and operational knowledge.
4. The manner for accommodating the USG technical and process requirements in a distinct profile and testing program.
5. Identification of aome key IPv6 design issues which remain unresolved.
This NIST SP 500-267 is available at: http://www.antd.nist.gov/usgv6-v1-draft.pdf (app/pdf)

It is always good to weight up the pros and cons of new protocols and this presentation by Jason Schiller Network Operator Concerns of SHIM6 (application/pdf gives a great overview of the worries of Inter-AS traffic engineering with SHIM6 in its current form.

I’ve just being looking in on the DEMO.com Video & Archives for 2007 where there are some very interesting presentations from companies “Making Mobile Work” and “Taking it to the Streets” the best from my perspective Nuvoiz SoftPhone and Crickett

Coming to the end of a very interesting IST ENABLE workshop in Murcia (Hosts UMU)

SHIM6 was a key topic of discussion from my point of view, and through our duscussions it was interesting to see other peoples thoughts on SHIM6, in particular we discussed this NRO Call for Comments on IPv6 Multi-homing Solutions.
Even though we really like the SHIM6 solution, and its applicability in the Mobile domain, there is clearly a issuee with route engineering.
Anyway you can see for yourself in the document “IPv6 Multi-homing Solutions and their Pro’s and Con’s”

I’ve left a little comment on the BarCamp SE blog, as praise is well deserved for such a well run and interesting event.

According to the NDP document, public funding of Research and Development (R&D) has risen rapidly in recent years, more than doubling between 2000 and 2005.
However, it is still perceived that Ireland’s performance in R&D is still behind that of the leading countries and so through the NDP there is increased investment in R&D. Great.
Looking at the Science Technology and Innovation (STI) Programme there are a number of sub-programmes:
`# World Class Research STI Sub-Programme;
`# Enterprise STI Sub-Programme;
`# Agri-Food Research Sub-Programme;
`# Energy Research Sub-Programme;
`# Marine Research Sub-Programme;
`# Geoscience Sub-Programme;
`# Health Research Sub-Programme; and
`# Environment Research Sub-Programme.
All described in NDP Chapter 8: Enterprise, Science and Innovation Priority (application/pdf)
At least at the moment, the ones of most interest to me are the World Class Research STI Sub-Programme and Enterprise STI Sub-Programme.

There have been a number of deliverables released by the IST ENABLE project but one of importance to us here at the TSSG are D6.1 “Report on case studies and initial prototypes (pdf) ” as we were editors, and D5.1″Initial evaluation of state of the art Mobile IPv6 alternatives (pdf)” as our contribution to SHIM6 is highlighted within the docment.
Okay back to D6.1 if your interested, it is a comprehensive summary of an application scenario (search & rescue scene management) and the design of software developments & test-bed integration effort for functionalities being prototyped wthin IST ENABLE.
The combination of the technological developments, initial prototyping and initial test-bed design gives a detailed design of the software architecture, interface descriptions and software modules for six technological components that are to be developed in the project. The six components are, EAP-based MIPv6 bootstrapping, AAA for MIPv6 bootstrapping, Interworking with IPv4 networks, HA load sharing, MIPv6 firewall traversal and Fast Mobile IPv6 (FMIPv6).
It is expected that once the software components are tested and integrated, they can be run as the application scenario (search & rescue) and this will show how ENABLE research has facilitated efficient and operational mobility in large heterogeneous IP networks.
As for D5.1 it provides a state of the art analysis of the Mobile IPv6 alternatives under study within different standardization forums, e.g., IETF, and other experimental approaches currently published in the scientific literature, describing how these proposals could affect the future deployment of mobility and security as a service in operational environments.
In order to assess the identified technologies, a set of evaluation criteria is defined. This ensures that all the relevant features of the mobility management systems are evaluated in a consistent way, and enables a straightforward comparison of the different solutions.
The analyzed technologies are the following:
# Host Identity Protocol (HIP). HIP is a network protocol intended to maintain shared IP-layer state between end hosts. HIP provides decoupling between the IP network address and the host identifier, and hence communication continues even on IP address changes.
# Internet Indirection Infrastructure (i3) and related technologies such as FARA. i3 proposes an overlay-based indirection infrastructure that offers a rendezvous-based communication abstraction, decoupling the act of sending a packet from the act of receiving it. FARA is a more experimental approach, defining a new organization of network architecture concepts, but it is based on the same indirection principle.
# Site Multihoming by IPv6 Intermediation (SHIM6). SHIM6 is a multihoming solution for IPv6 based on the addition of a new network sub-layer. This new layer allows for separating the well known IP location-identifier association by managing a group of assigned IP address and providing to the upper layers a single fixed address.
# Network-based Localized Mobility Management (NetLMM) and Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6). NetLMM and PMIPv6 are two alternative technologies that perform localized mobility management, allowing a MN to move from one access router to another inside the same organization in a transparent way. This kind of localized management allows for the reduction in mobility signaling traffic and the improvement of handover performance. One of the most remarkable features is that they work with unmodified (legacy) MNs.
D5.1 provides an assessment of each mobility management solution, the most interesting and deployable technologies are then selected for further study and improvements within the second year of the ENABLE project.
SHIM6 will be one such technology!
Finally all public deliverables can be obtained from Deliverables of IST ENABLE – ENABLING EFFICIENT AND OPERATIONAL MOBILITY IN LARGE METEROGENEOUS IP NETWORKS

I’ve been reviewing the IPv6 Forum Roadmap and Vision 2010 (application/pdf object) document as we are attempting to complete the TSSG submission to the updated document for 2007.
One interesting technology driver for IPv6 from my perspective is Multihoming (RFC 3582), providing a site with the ability to insulate itself from certain failure modes, such as logical link or routing protocol failures within one or more transit providers, as well as failures in the network providing interconnection among one or more transit providers.
RFC 3582 contains the goals for IPv6 Site-Multihoming Architectures from which SHIM6 derives its goals. And at the moment the TSSG are studying SHIM6 in great detail.

I finally got a chance to get my miguelpdl dotMobi site up and running, which can be neatly viewed in this phone emulator. All content at the moment is managed through the help of Zinadoo which was quick and easy I must say. Although the content itself will not give me a chance to attend the 11th Annual Webby Awards.
A recent article on dotMobi Carries Momentum of Successful Domain Registration Into 2007 got me into the mood.