IPv6 test bed comes online

MCI and the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory collaborated to bring online the North American IPv6 Task Force's Moonv6 next-generation Internet network by connecting it to Internet backbone and allowing nationwide direct connection.

The UNH test bed will give test participants a native, non-tunneled connection to Moonv6 via MCI's MAER Services network exchange points. MCI's MAE infrastructure facilitates nationwide Layer 2 interconnectivity and public peering between ISPs. MAE Services connection points are located in San Jose and Los Angeles in California and in Chicago, Dallas, Miami and Washington, D.C. Miami will go live in the first quarter of this year.

Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is the evolution of the IP and is designed to replace the IP called Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) in use today. IPv6 solves the issue of address exhaust brought on in part by the explosive growth of wireless IP devices and home networking. IPv6 also is expected to improve network routing and network auto-configuration.

MCI, the UNH and their partners hope that linking Moonv6 to the Internet will attract additional commercial enterprise sites to participate in the Moonv6 evolution for testing. MCI said establishing native IPv6 connectivity and tunneling should help facilitate testing and enable test participants to better assess how IPv6 equipment performs in real-world deployments.

The latest round of Moonv6 testing included interoperability in pure IPv6 as well as mixed IPv6 and IPv4 networks, wireless LANs, voice over IP, firewalls, IPsec (IP Security), dual-stack routing, Internet protocols such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, (DHCP), DNS and various applications and transition mechanisms.

The Moonv6 project is a global effort led by the North American IPv6 Task Force, which includes industry leaders, the UNH-IOL, Internet2, the Joint Interoperability Test Command and other government agencies, the Defense Research & Engineering Network and the High Performance Computing Modernization Program. The Moonv6 network is the largest permanently deployed multi-vendor IPv6 test network in the world.