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More on China's IPv6 Network Buildout
photojournaliste writes "China has developed and demonstrated its first high-performance network core router based on the next-generation Internet standard known as IPv6, which the country officially inaugurated earlier this week." There's also a CNet story, which has a bit more information than our earlier story.
Some experts have predicted that once China has embraced IPv6, Western countries that wish to do business with Asia will have to upgrade their own networks.
There is actually some truth in this, and might increase the accepetance rate. Same thing is happening to governments using OOo file formats is all, but at a smaller scale.
However, the other article said that it is backward compatible with ipv4, are they using some kind of NAT then, or is it just backward compatible in the sense that the Chinese network can read of ipv4 networks.
Another critique is that, whilst this network uses ipv6, it is mainly used to connect university networks, therefore, business won't be as much pushed to adopt ipv6, hence the article...
I really believe that this is a good thing. Many people are not embracing IPv6 due to lack of a high-profile rollout showing its feasability. Also, much of the software out there does not take advantage of IPv6. Having such a large number of people using IPv6 will persuade a few more people to start coding their software capable of using IPv6 addressing.
I really look forward to the day when I can (once again) have end-to-end connectivity with peers. The proliferation of NAT devices truly has changed the face of the Internet from a large peer-to-peer network with content at every corner, to a client-server model where content is only served by those with enough capital.
This is readily apparent in the draconian acceptable useage policies of most providers.
I *want* to be able to connect to any of my home machines from work, and vice-versa (firewall permitting). I would *love* to have my own block of portable address space for me to do with as I please.
I simply can't wait for this to catch on in more places. I encourage all of you to look into IPv6 and see how much added benefit you could get from having a near-unexhaustable pool of addresses available.
From the article:
China is not the only Asian country with a strong interest in IPv6. Japan has already implemented an IPv6 production network, which is used by every service provider in the country. South Korea is working with the EU to develop applications and services using IPv6.
Also, check out this article: Japan, China, S. Korea developing next Net.
What, are you implying the chinese would take the Cisco product, copy it IOS, product number and all, then add IPv6?
That's absurd, noone can read Cisco source code.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
No they rely on things like this:f m?pl=33&wt=2 y .php?skey=ch_1600t_400t_100
:-)
http://www.spirentcom.com/analysis/product_line.c
and this:
http://www.ixiacom.com/products/chassis/ch_displa
I used one of these to demonstrate to the IT department of my megacorp exactally why my networking lab needed it's own isolated subnet on its own Cat6K, and its own servers.
Once I started pumping out thousands of frames per second of random IP and MAC addresses their routers started dying under the loads.
I got everything I asked for
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
According to the article, half of the 'core' networking equipment was suppied by chinnese companties, of the two, one happened to be Huawei technolgies.
Lest we forget!
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/corp_012303.html
One of my favorite quotes to be found on cisco's website:
Copying of IOS source code: Cisco alleges that Huawei has copied portions of the Cisco IOS source code and included the technology in its operating system for its Quidway routers and switches. Huawei's operating system contains a number of text strings, file names, and bugs that are identical to those found in Cisco's IOS source code.
There is a rather better article on the subject of IPV6 adoption at InternetWeek, but that article is now four years old.
As for the specific information in the article,
"IPv6 provides billions more IP addresses" - I think the reporter is a bit confused about all these large numbers. IPv6 provides billions of TIMES more addresses. More even than that in fact; 2 to the power 128 is 79228162514264337593543950336 times greater than 2 to the power 32. (This calculation was brought to you by GNU bc)
"It was created and deployed in response to ... especially as Web use in Asia rises sharply." - The author has fallen for the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. In any case, the beginning of the development of IPv6 occurred significantly before the extensive takeup of Internet technologies in Asia.
As other people have already mentioned (including in the reader comments below the article - I would have contributed but see no point in "registering" with CNET), goodness knows where the journalist got their figure of "257 nodes". They should perhaps take the time to either check their notes or cross-check the information their sources are giving them.
Something the author failed to point out is that it is not only Asian countries that have been working with IPV6. There has been significant piloting in most countries that make use of the Internet. This means that there are IPV6 over IPv4 tunneling facilities that work therse days, meaning that it is not necessary for countries up upgrade everything to IPv6 in order for their businesses to trade with China, no matter what the article implies.