IPv6 update…

Since my previous post announcing the start of the IPv6 investigation project, good progress has been made:

• IPv6 support has been tested on the variety of network switches that we run.  As expected, it’s generally good on our newer models, but unreliable or non-existent on our older models.  Our ongoing rolling replacement of older switches should address this over time.
• Where supported, appropriate IPv6 configurations have been applied to the switches at all our sites.
• IPv6 routing has been tested locally on our core switch/routers and our Linux edge routers, and functions as expected.  The next step will be to liaise with IS to enable global routing, so that we can test worldwide IPv6 connectivity.
• Our edge firewall-rule generators are now IPv6 aware.

Once we have global connectivity working in our test setup, we will start to roll out IPv6 to our managed DICE machines. This will be done gradually, to minimise the effect on our existing IPv4 deployment. As soon as our servers start to advertise IPv6 addresses, the rest of the world will expect them to Just Work, and indeed may start to prefer them over IPv4 addresses.

IPv6 for self-managed machines is, unfortunately, still some way off.  It’s dependent on the replacement of our remaining old Forum switches (likely to be F/Y 2016-17), a follow-on project to add IPv6 support to our DHCP infrastructure, and the extension of our network auding tools to handle IPv6.

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