By: Eng. Kais A. Al-Essa Operations & Technical Services Manager Sahara Net’s Road to IPv6 Readiness

Agenda Sahara Net IPv6 Readiness The Spark! The Progress. The Challenges. Current Status. What can “WE” do? Where is IPv6? Q & A

IPv6 Spark! In October 2008, I attended MENOG meeting in which RIPE talked about IPv6 and why it is important. In February 2009, established “IPv6 Task Force” in Sahara Net. Task Force Goal: To make Sahara Net ready for IPv6 within one year and to educate customers on the need to go with IPv6. Formed from all concerned departments including: Customer Care Operations NOC Corporate Support And others. Task Force took a structured approach to making Sahara Net “IPv6 Ready” and held bi-weekly status meetings.

IPv6 Progress Got our IPv6 address space allocated in 4/ a02:d70::/32 Did a complete inventory of all devices and software on the network. By end of September 2009: Sahara Net was ready on its main backbone. Gateway Providers not ready!  Established International tunnel with HE. By October 1 st, our offices were running IPv6 (dual stack) with no interruption to business. By November 22, 2009, Sahara Net launched its IPv6 services as the 1 st ISP in Saudi Arabia to offer IPv6. Since then we have been ready to connect any organization through IPv6.

IPv6 Challenges Challenge 1: Awareness and Technical Knowledge!  Solved by experimenting and extensive courses/workshops. Challenge 2: Hardware and Software Compatibility  Most equipment were upgradeable with software (IOS).  Software needed tweaks/update to accommodate IPv6.  Still some issues exist but are not “show stoppers”. Layer 4 to 7 Switching. Caching Farm (soon). Challenge 3: Lets use it now!  Enabled on Lab for testing.  Enabled on one office network.  Enabled on all offices (7 locations with over 130 PCs).  Some security challenges still being worked out.

IPv6 Challenges Challenge 4: Lets work out the bugs!  No major issues after enabling.  Servers were difficult to statically address, enabled EUI-64. Challenge 5: Lets get Customers on board (current stage)  Launched as a great local resource for IPv6 information and knowledge (9/2009).  Did a FREE Seminar on IPv6 and other topics on March - April 2010 in Riyadh, Jeddah and Khobar (attendees over 200 in each city).  Enabled in MENOG6 in Riyadh (April 2010).  Working with selected customers to test IPv6 (currently). Challenge 6: Lets get EVERYONE on board  Activate IPv6 to Broadband (Consumer) and Businesses.

IPv6 Current Status IPv6 Ready and Enabled on Core and Edge. Pushing vendors to enable the “unenabled/unsupported”. Changed purchasing requirements to include “IPv6 Readiness”. Sahara Net is a Certified IPv6 ISP by “IPv6 Forum” Our IPv6 customers can now put HTML code on their website so that IPv6 customer logo will appear in their website. We are proud to be the 1st IPv6 certified ISP by “IPv6 Forum” in Saudi Arabia.

What U get?

Where is IPv6? IPv4 Exhausted!  In 2008, it was predicted last IPv4 will be allocated in  In 2009, it was pushed earlier to  In 4/2010, it was predicted to finish on Sept 16,  In 9/2010, it was predicted to finish on May end % of all ASes still use IPv4 only! Content is coming on board! Google, early adopter. CNN, NetFlix and Facebook.

Summary Sahara Net is Ready with IPv6 since November Changed purchasing requirements to include IPv6 compatibility. Pushing Vendors to fix the “unready” ! Working now to connect “selected” customers. Remaining issues: Caching, planned for 2 nd Quarter Layer 4 to 7 Switching, awaiting vendor. Globally, IPv6 Adoption is still struggling and didn’t become mainstream! In Saudi Arabia IPv6 is not great yet but there is good progress. “WE” need to push adoption internally within our own organizations.

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