Archive for the ‘ipv6’ Category

  • World IPv6 Day

    Date: 2011.06.08 | Category: ipv6, networking, tech•ed 2010, tech•ed 2011 | Response: 0

    Today is world IPv6 day, http://ipv6day.org/ and its great to see all the big providers onboard with finally transitioning to ipv6. In Australia there still no consumer ISP’s that have IPv6 in production via services such as xDSL – but by far Internode are the closest.
     
    Microsoft is giving this a go on the following:
     
    jorke@server1:~$ dig +short aaaa www.bing.com
    ipv6.search.ms.com.edgesuite.net.
    a1877.dscb.akamai.net.
    2600:1409::6011:f6b
    2600:1409::6011:f83
     
    jorke@server1:~$ dig +short aaaa www.microsoft.com
    toggle.www.ms.akadns.net.
    g.www.ms.akadns.net.
    ipv6-selector.www.ms.akadns.net.
    2a01:111:200a:1::14
    2a01:111:200a:1::15
    2a01:111:200a:1::13
     
    jorke@server1:~$ dig +short aaaa www.xbox.com
    www.gtm.xbox.com.
    www.xbox.com.edgesuite.net.
    a1123.dsw2.akamai.net.
    2600:1409::6011:f79
    2600:1409::6011:f82
     
    A couple of the sites we host locally have always had IPv6 Addresses:
     
    jorke@server1:~$ dig +short aaaa techedbackstage.net
    2403:ce00:c0de:c0de:2030:1906:6098:1
     
    jorke@server1:~$ dig +short aaaa noisetosignal.com.au
    2403:ce00:c0de:c0de:fa7:fa57:da7a:fa71
     
    Locally we’ve been forging ahead with IPv6 where we can, you might remember last year we did native IPv6 at tech.ed 2010 and and of course we’ll be doing native this year at tech.ed 2011 – we’ve already managed to get the ipv6 allocations from APNIC.. unfortunately still no IPv4.
     
    Where we’ve seen the biggest change is with the Content Distribution Networks such as Akamai and Limelight where we found the end user experience very lacking previously. Microsoft server products have supported v6 quite well – there are a few bugs we’re ironing out, and days like today really help us fix this.
     
    Official Microsoft Blog here and Bing here .
     
    If you want to get a view of what’s happening out there.. http://v6day.ripe.net/cgi-bin/dns-aggr.cgi
     
    And a site note – If you’ve enabled IPv6, make sure you allow ICMPv6 on your firewalls, assuming your firewall supports it Smile
     
    Have a happy v6 day!
     
    - jorke and the backstage team.

  • tech•ed and the IPocalypse: What you need to know.

    Date: 2011.04.01 | Category: Uncategorized, ipv6, networking, planning, setup, tech•ed 2011, wireless | Response: 13

    As planning for tech•ed 2011 in September this year has formally commenced I’m again in the role of being responsible for the technology across the whole event (including the Australian Partner Conference).

    Each year I’ve challenged our technical team to try something risky to keep us honest about leading with first rate technology implementation and practice. You can see our success on this blog and numerous press articles.

    The first challenge I’ve identified this year is to move the whole event from a NAT’d network to a full blown public routed network, similar to what you see with an ISP. We’ve based this looking at last years usage pattern on our networks , and after some research we’ve come to this conclusion due to the lack of sensibly priced devices that can support 8000+ clients with many port mappings.

    To some extent we achieved part of this last year with giving everyone a public routable ipv6 address with all ipv4 still being NAT’d. Our key requirement to support approximately 2500 delegates a few hundred staff and many, many ip enabled devices it to acquire a large range of pubic ip’s in the order of a /19,  /18 or /17 giving us 8192 or 16384, 32768 respectively, possible clients to support (if you don’t understand see CIDR).

    Now the impending exhaustion of ipv4 address space commonly referred to as the IPocalypse you can imagine this kind of addressable space is not easily obtainable  – and can sometimes even go for a high price .  Last year we requested a temporary allocation from APNIC out of their portable/temporary range, which we used for a couple of weeks and shortly after returned. As a side note that same temporary range was used by LinuxConf in Brisbane a few months later, however sites like speedtest.net still cached the Microsoft tech•ed entry at the event… 

    In our manner of planning ahead, last week we initiated our request to APNIC for a /17 or /18 or /19, as well as a temporary ipv6 allocation.. This was the response from APNIC.(note that the names and contact details have been scrubbed to protect the not so innocent – of course read from the ) ;

    From: xxxxx@xxxxx
Date: Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 11:47 AM
Subject: [APNIC #XXXXXX] Temporary IPv4 and IPv6 allocation for Microsoft TechEd
To: xxxxx@xxxx.xxx

Dear XXXXXXX,

Thank you for your email reply.

There is no IPv4 address space available for temporary allocation.

This reserved address space is no longer available as it has been placed
back in the APNIC free pool for distribution.

Please let us know if you wish to continue to obtain a temporary /48
IPv6 assignment from APNIC.

We look forward to hear back from you.
If you have and further questions, please let us know.

Kind Regards,
--
____________________________________________________________________
APNIC       sip:

http://www.apnic.net

_____________________________________________________________________

* Sent by email to save paper. Print only if necessary.
On Wed Mar 23 10:06:01 2011, xxxx@xxxx.xx wrote:
> Hi XXXX,
>
> What is the largest v4 block you can offer?
>
> I was under the understanding that APNIC had a block of space parked for
> temporary uses like this event (the netblock we used at TE last year was
> used at LinuxConf this year).
>
> XXXXXX.
>
> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 10:01 AM, XXXX XX via RT  wrote:
>
> > Dear XXXXX,
> >
> > Thank you for your email.
> >
> > In regards to your request, due to the APNIC reaching Stage 2 of the
> > IPv4 Exhaustion plan, APNIC are unable to provide a temporary /17 IPv4
> > allocation.
> >
> > However, we are able to provide you a temporary /48 IPv6 assignment.
> >
> > Please let us know if you wish to continue to obtain a temporary /48
> > IPv6 assignment from APNIC.
> >
> > We look forward to hear back from you.
> >
> > If you have any questions, please let us know.
> >
> > Kind Regards,
> >
> > --
> > _____________________________________________________________________
> > APNIC       sip:
> > http://www.apnic.net                 phone:
> >                                       fax:
> > _____________________________________________________________________
> >
> > * Sent by email to save paper. Print only if necessary.
> > On Tue Mar 22 11:39:03 2011, xxxx@xxxx.xxx wrote:
> > > Hi there,
> > >
> > > We are in planning stages for Microsoft TechEd 2011 to be held in the
> > > Gold Coast Convention Centre this year. As per last year we would like
> > > to obtain a temporary allocation for use at the event.
> > >
> > > We are seeking the following:
> > >
> > > * IPv6 /48
> > > * IPv4 /17
> > >
> > > The earliest date we would be using these addresses is the 1st of July
> > > 2011.
> > >
> > > We would return the addresses on the 16th of September 2011.
> > >
> > > Could you please advise what you require for this allocation and when
> > > it might be approved so that we can do our physical network design.

    So that’s it then – no more ipv4 space for us. We’ve committed to the path of deploying a fully routed network so it looks like it will be an:  IPv6 ONLY network!

    We are working really hard to make sure that the key resources for the event (the schedule builder, for example) are available over IPv6.

    As for other purposes not directly related to the event, we will not be offering IPv4 connectivity.

    There will be an option to purchase time on Telstra NextG USB dongles at the event and we are working hard on coming up with a good sponsorship arrangement to help out with the cost of IPv4 network access during tech•ed.

    - Jorke and the network team aka David Connors

  • Infrastructure Saturday 2010 Slide Deck

    Date: 2010.11.08 | Category: Australian Partner Conference 2010, Uncategorized, ipv6, networking, tech•ed 2009, tech•ed 2010, wireless | Response: 0

    We had a great time at Infrastructure Saturday on the 6th of November. An epic amount of work was put in by one Mr Mark Rhodes to make the event the success that it was.

    The slide deck from our presentation is available here:

    Infrastructure Saturday tech•ed Backstage 2010

    Ben Parker presented quite a few slides on the enterprise software stack on DemoNet – content that we really missed out on delivering at the event.

    We hope you enjoyed the talk – No evals through yet but in the wrap up a guy said that he gave us all “1″s because he thought that was the top score (not 5!) Doh!

  • Tech•Ed backstage 2010 – VOC208 – The Presentation

    Date: 2010.09.11 | Category: Australian Partner Conference 2009, Australian Partner Conference 2010, Uncategorized, ipv6, netbooks, networking, planning, setup, tech•ed 2009, tech•ed 2010, wireless | Response: 0

    We did a talk on the infrastructure behind TechEd 2010 as one of the very last sessions of the event.

    The video is available here: http://www.msteched.com/2010/Australia/voc208

    The whole talk was very much ‘by the seat of our pants’ as we were insanely busy. Ben Parker, unfortunately, could not make it on stage due to other work commitments at the event. This was a real shame as he is ‘the man’ when it comes to the IT Pro side of the MS Enterprise software stack.

    Unbelievably (given the rushed presentation and that most of the slide deck was a re-heated user group presentation I delivered a few months ago because we ran out of time ), we managed to score the #2 spot out of 165 sessions at the event, with an “Overall Satisfaction” of 4.74 out of 5. This is a great result but I cannot help but think there was a lot of other more deserving content at the event that probably should have rated higher.

    We had a lot of good laughs – half of them at my expense. The notorious review comment from ARC301 came back to haunt me (2m 20s in … Thanks Jorke ;) )

    Evaluation scores follow:

    VOC208 Tech•Ed backstage 2010!
    Friday, August 27 13:45 – 15:00
    Central A
    David Connors, Ben Parker, Jorke Odolphi
    Attendance Count:
    Questions
    Q10 Overall, I was satisfied with this Session.
    Q20 The speaker was knowledgeable about the subject matter.
    Q30 The speaker’s presentation skills helped me better understand the material.
    Q40 The session was effective in demonstrating the product, technology and/or solution.
    Q50 The knowledge/skills I gained are relevant to my role.
    Q60 This session was worth the investment of my time.
    Q70 I will recommend this session to others.
    Q80 Please provide additional constructive comments, suggestions, feedback.

    Overall Results

    Evals Submitted Q10 Q20 Q30 Q40 Q50 Q60 Q70
    19 4.74 4.74 4.58 4.68 4.53 4.53 4.58

    Rollup Results

    Question Avg % Strongly Disagree % Disagree % Neutral % Agree % Strongly Agree Num. Submitted
    Overall, I was satisfied with this Session. 4.74 26.32 73.68 19
    The speaker was knowledgeable about the subject matter. 4.74 26.32 73.68 19
    The speaker’s presentation skills helped me better understand the material. 4.58 5.26 5.26 15.79 73.68 19
    The session was effective in demonstrating the product, technology and/or solution. 4.68 5.26 21.05 73.68 19
    The knowledge/skills I gained are relevant to my role. 4.53 10.53 26.32 63.16 19
    This session was worth the investment of my time. 4.53 15.79 15.79 68.42 19
    I will recommend this session to others. 4.58 15.79 10.53 73.68 19

    Comments

    Please provide additional constructive comments, suggestions, feedback.
    Great look at the unsung heroes of etched. Great way to finish the conference.
    Great session to end Tech Ed on. More of an FYI session than a learning one but still really enjoyed it and found it interesting.
    interesting to know how the backend stuff is deployed so if i ever need to do something on a similar scale i will have an inkling of what to do
    Need to use standard template – one used very hard to read.
    This session was brilliant – I saw just how much work went into Tech.Ed to get it going, made me even more appreciative of you all!
    Wicked stuff!

  • Frankly Speaking Episode 42

    Date: 2010.09.06 | Category: Australian Partner Conference 2010, ipv6, networking, planning, tech•ed 2010, wireless | Response: 0

    Andrew Coates and Michael Kordahi interviewed Jorke and I for their Frankly Speaking podcast. Tune in and listen; hopefully I was making sense with the amount of sleep I did have at that point of the events. :)

  • tech•ed 2010 / APC 2010 IT Press Round Up

    Date: 2010.09.05 | Category: Australian Partner Conference 2010, ipv6, tech•ed 2010, wireless | Response: 1

    Here is a quick collection of the press articles specifically about the infrastructure. There are a lot of others about Windows Phone 7 etc but we didn’t list those here.

    This is a pretty good summary of the event in general:

    More write-ups coming … no, really!

  • IPv6 – bringing a horse to water..

    Date: 2010.08.24 | Category: Uncategorized, ipv6, networking, tech•ed 2010, wireless | Response: 0

    So you may have seen some press here , here and here around work that we’re doing at teched bringing brave new world of IPv6 to the delegate experience.

    Why are we doing this?

    It’s well know that ipv4 address space is running out, while this is problematic for service providers and telcos – in our opinion it also as just as big a problem for application developers.

    So this is our challenge this year – giving every delegate the chance to experience this first hand. We’ll be giving full native IPv6 addresses for each and every device that can support it.

    We’ve learnt a LOT about the ins and outs of IPv6, those learning will be transparently displayed on this blog as per our normal policy.

    If you’re at Tech.Ed you can check this out by going to http://ip6.me or http://www.v6.facebook.com and see the IP address you get!

    I also hope you’ll enjoy our planned IPv6 celebration hours we’ll have during the event, where only IPv6 will be available on the network!

    - The Backstage team.

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