[afripv6-discuss] IPv6 - The current status in the tertiaryeducation sector in South Africa

Thu Jul 14 13:36:28 SAST 2005

Hi Andrew,

If you have some contacts at Telkom, I can try to convince them, and help
them to move on to native IPv6.

Fully agree with your view that some times even with tunnels is faster. Its
only a result of a better operation of the IPv6 networks right now (at least
some of them). Is like when you do something for a second time (setting up
IP networks, 1st time with IPv4, now with IPv6), you have more experience
and do it better, at least you try it. But if it was native it will be even
better probably !

We had the same in several events and situations where we provided native
IPv6 access :-)

In any case, having a native link don't disallow you to have the keep the
tunnels.

Also agree that making the networks IPv6-enabled not necessarily means
investing a lot of money neither a lot of effort. Most of the time IPv6
comes for free, as a value added, when you keep your existing network
properly maintained (firmware upgrades, line cards, etc.).

Most of the cost will come from the lack of experience, as which any new
technology, and that's why we are here to help !

LAC region has only 18 prefixes until June, now they got already 26 and more
coming in the next few weeks. Most of those networks don't just get the
prefix, my goal is also to make sure that they are up and running with IPv6
immediately, and we are getting there.

The proposal is to do the same in AfriNIC. Let's start moving on !

Regards,
Jordi

> De: Andrew Alston <aalston at icts.uct.ac.za>
> Responder a: <aalston at icts.uct.ac.za>
> Fecha: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 13:07:42 +0200
> Para: <jordi.palet at consulintel.es>, IPv6 in Africa
> <afripv6-discuss at afrinic.net>
> Asunto: Re: [afripv6-discuss] IPv6 - The current status in the
> tertiaryeducation sector in South Africa
> 
> Hi Jordi,
> 
> Tenet currently uses telkom as a service provider.  To my knowledge (and Im
> open to correction here), Telkom has been looking at v6 for a while now,
> however they are at this point not ready to roll out native v6 on their
> network.  When this will happen Im not sure.
> 
> As a result, we needed transit, to this end I approached both Occaid and
> RealRoute international, who kindly agreed to give us v6 transit as an
> educational institution.  (The realroute transit is temprorary until such
> time our other means of transit via another source goes live). (Many thanks
> to both Occaid and RealRoute for this btw).
> 
> These tunnels run to endpoints in europe with the v4 tunnel backend going
> over Telkom current infrastructure, with what is actually incredibly low
> latency (about 153ms on the faster of the 2, which is only about 2ms higher
> than the latency over v4  to the european based v4 router we use)
> 
> As a result, the v6 connectivity for Tenet at the moment is actually very
> very efficient (and in the case of US connected v6 hosts, like
> ftp.freebsd.org, the connectivity over the v6 tunnels via our transits is
> actually BETTER than going native v4 via our upstream to the states.  (With
> about 400% increase in transfer speeds over FTP when using v6 versus the v4,
> purely because the route it takes via v6 is better than the upstream v4
> route)
> 
> As a result of this, while obviously this is up for much discussion and this
> view point could drastically change, and this is merely my own personal
> viewpoint, even if our upstream providers did go native v6, while obviously
> we would like to utilize that, we may well decide to also keep our Occaid
> transit tunnel in place as a backup, and also as a primary route in some
> cases because of how efficient it has proved to be.
> 
> By the way, as a side note, Tenet opted to go for a FreeBSD routing solution
> for v6 for now, and while this could change in the future as we move
> forward, I just wanted to stress to those looking at v6, that you do NOT
> need to invest large amounts of money in new routers, IOS upgrades on your
> routers etc in order to do roll out v6 routing.  Using FreeBSD and doing bgp
> announcements from FreeBSD based platforms works like a dream, and if anyone
> wants more information on this, feel free to contact me.
> 
> Anyway, thats just a bit more information.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Andrew Alston
> Tenet IPv6 Consultant
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "JORDI PALET MARTINEZ" <jordi.palet at consulintel.es>
> To: "IPv6 in Africa" <afripv6-discuss at afrinic.net>
> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 9:37 AM
> Subject: Re: [afripv6-discuss] IPv6 - The current status in the
> tertiaryeducation sector in South Africa
> 
> 
>> Hi Andrew,
>> 
>> Once more I want to offer my help to enable both native and tunneled IPv6
>> in
>> the region.
>> 
>> Regarding this specific case, in order to move on, the first question will
>> be to make sure if there is any way to get a native service (or a tunneled
>> one in the worst case) with your own upstream providers. If you want to
>> provide me the information about who are the upstream providers
>> (off-line),
>> I will be able, most probably, to help on that.
>> 
>> I will be happy also to attend that workshop if that could help, just let
>> me
>> know the details.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Jordi
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> De: Andrew Alston <aalston at its.uct.ac.za>
>>> Responder a: IPv6 in Africa <afripv6-discuss at afrinic.net>
>>> Fecha: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 19:25:21 +0200
>>> Para: <afripv6-discuss at afrinic.net>
>>> Asunto: [afripv6-discuss] IPv6 - The current status in the tertiary
>>> education
>>> sector in South Africa
>>> 
>>> Hi All,
>>> 
>>> I thought for interests sake I'd share with the list the current status
>>> of IPv6 from the Tenet point of view (What we have, what we currently
>>> are doing etc).
>>> 
>>> Tenet owns its own IPv6 Block, which obviously needed to be announced,
>>> and at the same time customers (the tertiary education units), needed to
>>> be able to start using this.  Currently there are no ISP's that I know
>>> of in South Africa doing native IPv6 internationally (if Im wrong here,
>>> someone please correct me).
>>> 
>>> So after some negotiations we dropped tunnels to 2 points into Europe
>>> and announced our 2001:548::/32 block via AS 6149.
>>> 
>>> Tenet now offers any of its customers an IPv6 tunnel end point should
>>> they so wish.  Obviously said customers would need to apply for IPv6
>>> space from Tenet first. (Tenet is currently an LIR for IPv6 space in the
>>> academic environment).  Currently there are a number of v6 blocks
>>> allocated to institutions, with 2 institutions with active tunnels and
>>> live utilization of their v6 blocks.
>>> 
>>> At the moment there is a debate over the provision of IPv6 space to
>>> tertiary education units with regards to the size of the V6 blocks.  I
>>> discussed this matter in Barcelona at the IPv6 conference with some of
>>> the other NREN's and there seemed to be some fairly mixed opinions, but
>>> a lot of the NREN's were allocating /48s per facuilty, rather than per
>>> institution, which typically would mean the allocation of /44s, or
>>> perhaps /43s to the average university in South Africa.
>>> 
>>> At current institutions are allocated /48s, but the starting points of
>>> the blocks are spaced in such a way that should the eventual decision to
>>> be taken to allocate on a /44 basis rather, this could be done without
>>> renumbering existing people.
>>> 
>>> I have also attempted to contact various ISP's in South Africa who I
>>> have heard either have, or are planning some form of V6 implementation
>>> to discuss peering arrangements with Tenet, unfortunatly so far this has
>>> not yielded huge success, but I think as IPv6 rollout in South Africa
>>> grows, this will become easier. (If there are any ISP's in South Africa
>>> that are currently utilizing IPv6 that are interested in talking
>>> peering, please feel free to mail me off list).
>>> 
>>> So, with all that being said, where to from here.
>>> 
>>> I think to start with, we need to encourage the use of v6 in the
>>> institutions.  To this end there is a v6 workshop planned for the
>>> tertiary education units in September which will kindly be presented by
>>> 6diss.  Hopefully this will produce positive reaction and encourage the
>>> rollout.
>>> 
>>> Anyway, thats where we currently sit with regards to v6.
>>> 
>>> Many Thanks
>>> Andrew Alston
>>> Tenet - IPv6 Consultant
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> afripv6-discuss mailing list
>>> afripv6-discuss at afrinic.net
>>> http://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/afripv6-discuss
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 

************************************
The IPv6 Portal: http://www.ipv6tf.org

Barcelona 2005 Global IPv6 Summit
Information available at:
http://www.ipv6-es.com

This electronic message contains information which may be privileged or confidential. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, including attached files, is prohibited.