IP,IPv6 Routing Protocols, Internet protocols version six, IPv6

Source :

Deploying IPv6 Networks

By Ciprian Popoviciu, Eric Levy-Abegnoli, Patrick Grossetete

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Publisher: Cisco Press

Pub Date: February 10, 2006

IPv6 Routing Protocols

Numerous IPv4 routing protocols (RPs) are available for finding routes between networks, and almost every one of them has an IPv6 correspondent or extension: Routing Information Protocol next-generation (RIPng), Open Shortest Path First version 3 (OSPFv3), Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). So far, IPv6 has brought few innovations to the IP routing paradigm. There are still interior gateway protocols (IGPs) and exterior gateway protocols (EGPs), distance vectorbased and link-state-based routing protocol algorithms, and so on.

The concept of the autonomous system, defined as a set of networks controlled by a common administrative entity, remains unchanged with the introduction of IPv6 RPs. The same autonomous system (and autonomous system number [ASN]) will route both IPv4 and IPv6. IPv6 IGPs, used to exchange routes within the autonomous system, are namely RIPng, OSPFv3, IS-IS for IPv6, and EIGRP for IPv6. Only BGP4 is available to exchange IPv6 routes between autonomous systems. Multiprotocol extensions provide support in BGP4 for IPv6 routing.

The requirements for IGPs and EGPs are quite different, in terms of routing table size, number of supported routers, convergence time, security, routing policy, and so forth. For that reason, they use different algorithms and mechanisms, which also affect the type of information they exchange and store. IGPs use distance vector and link state, whereas BGP uses the path vector RP algorithm. The following table represents RP taxonomy, and highlights their IPv6 correspondent. For more details on how to choose the RP, refer to Top-Down Network Design, Second Edition, by Priscilla Oppenheimer.

Table 4-1. Taxonomy of Routing Protocols

Deployment Domain	Algorithm	RP	Scalability	Convergence Time	Metric	IPv6 Version
Interior gateway protocol (IGP)	Distance vector	RIP	15 hops	Slow	Hop count	RIPng
		EIGRP	1000s routers	Quick (via DUAL algorithm)	Bandwidth, delay, reliability, load	EIGRP for IPv6
	Link state	OSPF	1000s routers (100s/area)	Quick (via LSAs and HELLO)	Cost (function of bandwidth on Cisco routers)	OSPFv3
		IS-IS	1000s routers (100s/area)	Quick (via LSPs)	Configured host, delay, expense	IS-IS for IPv6
Exterior gateway protocol (EGP)	Distance vector	EGP			Integer <=255
	Path vector	BGP AF=IPv4	1000s routers	Slow (via UPDATE)	Function of path attributes and other configurable factors	BGP AF=IPv6

The rest of this section briefly reviews existing unicast RP technologies. The next section reviews each of the available IPv6 RPs and provides configuration examples. Then the last two sections cover the topic of multihoming and deployment aspects, respectively.

IP Mobility, IP, IPv6, IP version 6, Internet protocol

Source :

Deploying IPv6 Networks

By Ciprian Popoviciu, Eric Levy-Abegnoli, Patrick Grossetete

...............................................

Publisher: Cisco Press

Pub Date: February 10, 2006

IP Mobility

The Internet has become so pervasive that no matter where you are, you can plug your computer into a wall, or attach to a wireless LAN, and, after a while, you will be able to communicate. Is not this mobility? Well, not quite.

That type of "mobility" is achieved by getting a new IP address within the network of attachment and losing all sessions bound to the previous IP address. This might be acceptable for corporate users moving from work to home, but can be much more cumbersome for road warriors, and it can be a showstopper for IP telephony.

Mobile IP provides a network layer for hosts that enables them to maintain the same IP address no matter where they are in the Internet, and keep receiving traffic as they move.

"Advanced ServicesIPv6 Mobility," MIPv6 is compared to MIPv4. Even though MIPv4 is a mature and deployable technology, it faces limitations because of the nature of IPv4. At the same time, IPv6 mobility is considered as one potential enabler for IPv6. The number of IP-enabled devices and the need for any-to-any communications among them is driving requirements that IPv4 cannot easily satisfy, and it is opening opportunities for IPv6. By integrating functionalities designed for Mobile IPv4 into standard IPv6 protocols, and by leveraging existing IPv6 capabilities, MIPv6 has built up a MIP model that is much more compelling than its IPv4 counterpart.

It must be noted that enhancements to mobility are largely taking place in IPv6 related working groups, even though a fraction gets retrofitted into the IPv4 standards. Although MIPv6 has benefited greatly from its MIPv4 parent, it is now the driver of the evolution of IP mobility, and it is widely expected to be a foremost steering force for IPv6 deployments.

In terms of deployment, it must be considered that IP mobility enables new flows, which impact the wireless infrastructure: Telephony over IP demands a higher level of coverage, latency, and QoS enforcement, whereas peer to peer imposes always-on reachability and multimedia capabilities.

The application of the MIP and NEtwork MObility (NEMO) standards is not limited to hosts and routers that actually roam around the Internet as a usual behavior. Sales of consumer routers are plummeting. At the moment, they are related to IPv4 NAT operations. With IPv6, it can be expected that people will deploy unmanaged yet globally addressable networks at home. NEMO support by the home gateways would enable a service provider to deploy preprovisioned devices, and could save hundreds of thousands of network-renumbering operations per year as customers move from one home to the next.

At the core, MIP builds dynamic tunnels, and NEMO exchanges routes over those tunnels. In a way, this is a revamping of the traditional model of the core where BGP routers exchange the bulk of the Internet routes over peering tunnels. But whereas the model of the Internet is designed for fixed, aggregated routes that are locally injected and slowly distributed throughout its fabric, MIP and NEMO techniques enable a new model where routes are projected where and when they are needed, on-demand; this opens to a new level of hierarchy for the fine-grained mobile routes, and a new order of scalability for the Internet.

But the Internet of today is not fully ready for IP mobility. Even if IPv6 can exist over an IPv4 fabric as a transitional method, a significant number of improvements must be made to cope with the latency of the protocol and enable multimedia interactive applications such as voice calls and video.

Data Cabling Rules,Reliable Cabling, Poor Cabling Cost

The Golden Rules of Data Cabling,The Importance of Reliable Cabling,The Legacy of Proprietary Cabling Systems, Cabling and the Need for Speed, Cable Design , Data Communications 101, Speed Bumps: What Slows Down Your Data, The Future of Cabling Performance. Learn how to Cabling, Know that better than the best.

Source: Cabling:The Complete Guide to Network Wiring (Third Edition)
Author : David Barnett, David Groth, Jim McBee.

“Data cabling! It’s just wire. What is there to plan?” the newly promoted programmer turned MIS-director commented to Jim. The MIS director had been contracted to help the company move its 750-node network to a new location. During the initial conversation, the director had a couple of other “insights”:
●He said that the walls were not even up in the new location, so it was too early to be talking about data cabling.
●To save money, he wanted to pull the old Category 3 cabling and move it to the new location. (“We can run 100Base-TX on the old cable.”)
●He said not to worry about the voice cabling and the cabling for the photocopier tracking system; someone else would coordinate that. Jim shouldn’t have been too surprised by the ridiculous nature of these comments. Too few people understand the importance of a reliable, standards-based, flexible cabling system. Fewer still understand the challenges of building a high-speed network. Some of the technical problems associated with building a cabling system to support a high-speed network are comprehended only by electrical engineers. And many believe that a separate type of cable should be in the wall for each application (PCs, printers, terminals, copiers, etc.). Data cabling has come a long way in the past 20 years. This chapter discusses some of the basics of data cabling, including topics such as:

●The golden rules of data cabling
●The importance of reliable cabling
●The legacy of proprietary cabling systems
●The increasing demands on data cabling to support higher speeds
●Cable design and materials used to make cables
●Types of communications media
●Limitations that cabling imposes on higher-speed communications
●The future of cabling performance

You are probably thinking right now that all you really want to know is how to install cable to support a few 10Base-T workstations. Words and phrases such as attenuation,crosstalk,twisted pair,modular connectors, and multi-mode optical-fiber cable may be completely foreign to you. Just as the world of PC LAN's and WANs has its own industry buzzwords, so does the cabling business. In fact, you may hear such an endless stream of buzzwords and foreign terminology that you’ll wish you had majored in electrical engineering in college. But it’s not really that mysterious and, armed with the background and information we’ll provide, you’ll soon be using cable speak like a cabling professional.

The Golden Rules of Data Cabling

Listing our own golden rules of data cabling is a great way to start this chapter and the book. If your cabling is not designed and installed properly, you will have problems that you can’t even imagine. From our experience, we’ve become cabling evangelists, spreading the good news of proper cabling. What follows is our list of rules to consider when planning structuredcabling systems:

●Networks never get smaller or less complicated.
●Build one cabling system that will accommodate voice and data.
●Always install more cabling than you currently require. Those extra outlets will come in
handy someday.
●Use structured-cabling standards when building a new cabling system. Avoid anything
proprietary!
●Quality counts! Use high-quality cabling and cabling components. Cabling is the foundation of your network; if the cabling fails, nothing else will matter. For a given grade or category of cabling, you’ll see a range of pricing, but the highest prices don’t necessarily mean the highest quality. Buy based on the manufacturer’s reputation and proven performance, not the price.
●Don’t scrimp on installation costs. Even quality components and cable must be installed correctly; poor workmanship has trashed more than one cabling installation.
●Plan for higher speed technologies than are commonly available today. Just because 1000Base-T Ethernet seems unnecessary today does not mean it won’t be a requirement in five years.
●Documentation, although dull, is a necessary evil that should be taken care of while you’re setting up the cabling system. If you wait, more pressing concerns may cause you to ignore it.

The Importance of Reliable Cabling

We cannot stress enough the importance of reliable cabling. Two recent studies vindicated our evangelical approach to data cabling. The studies showed:

●Data cabling typically accounts for less than 10 percent of the total cost of the network infrastructure.
●The life span of the typical cabling system is upwards of 16 years. Cabling is likely the second most long-lived asset you have (the first being the shell of the building).
●Nearly 70 percent of all network-related problems are due to poor cabling techniques and cable-component problems.

Of course, these were facts that we already knew from our own experiences. We have spent countless hours troubleshooting cabling systems that were nonstandard, badly designed, poorly documented, and shoddily installed. We have seen many dollars wasted on the installation of additional cabling and cabling infrastructure support that should have been part of the original installation. Regardless of how you look at it, cabling is the foundation of your network. It must be reliable!

The Cost of Poor Cabling

The costs that result from poorly planned and poorly implemented cabling systems can be staggering. One company that had recently moved into a new office space used the existing cabling, which was supposed to be Category 5 cable. Almost immediately, 100Mbps Ethernet network users reported intermittent problems.

These problems included exceptionally slow access times when reading e–mail, saving documents, and using the sales database. Other users reported that applications running under Windows 98 and Windows NT were locking up, which often caused them to have to reboot their PC. After many months of network annoyances, the company finally had the cable runs tested. Many cables did not even meet the minimum requirements of a Category 5 installation, and other cabling runs were installed and terminated poorly.

Network Fundamental and its Components

Source : Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking Second edition

What Is Networking?

In the simplest sense, networking means connecting computers so that they can share files, printers, applications, and other computer-related resources. The advantages of networking computers are fairly obvious:
● Users can save their important files and documents on a file server. This is more secure than storing them on workstations because a file server can be backed up in a single operation.
● Users can share a network printer, which costs much less than having a locally attached printer for each user’s computer.
● Users can share groupware applications running on application servers, which enables users to share documents, send messages, and collaborate directly.
● The job of administering and securing a company’s computer resources is simplified since they are concentrated on a few centralized servers. The above definition of networking focuses on the basic goals of networking computers together: increased manageability, security, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency over non-networked systems. However, we could also focus our discussion on the different types of networks, including
● Personal area networks (PANs), once the stuff of science fiction but rapidly becoming a reality as the mobile knowledge workers of today carry around an array of cell phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), pagers, and other small devices
● Local area networks (LANs), which can range from a few desktop workstations in a Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) to several thousand workstations and dozens of servers deployed throughout dozens of buildings on a university campus or in an industrial park
● Metropolitan area networks (MANs), which span an urban area and are generally run by telcos and other service providers to provide companies with high-speed connectivity between branch offices and with the Internet
● Wide area networks (WANs), which might take the form of a company’s head office linked to a few branch offices or an enterprise spanning several continents with hundreds of offices and subsidiaries
● The Internet, the world’s largest network and the “network of networks” On the other hand, we could also focus on the different networking architectures in which these various types of networks can be implemented, including
● Peer-to-peer networking, which might be implemented in a workgroup consisting of computers running Microsoft Windows 98 or Windows 2000 Professional
● Server-based networking, which might be based on the domain model of Windows NT, the domain trees and forests of Active Directory directory service in Windows 2000, or another architecture such as Novell Directory Services (NDS) for Novell NetWare
● Terminal-based networking, which might be the traditional host-based mainframe environment; the UNIX X Windows environment; the terminal services of Windows NT Server 4 Enterprise Edition; Windows 2000 Advanced Server; or Citrix MetaFrame Or we could look at the various networking technologies used to implement these architectures, including
● LAN technologies such as Ethernet, Token Ring, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Fast
Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), and the emerging 10G Ethernet (10GbE)
● WAN technologies such as Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), T-carrier leased lines, X.25, frame relay, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), and metropolitan Ethernet
● Wireless communication technologies such as the wireless LAN (WAN) standards 802.11a and
802.11b, and the consumer wireless technologies HomeRF and Bluetooth
● Cellular communication systems such as Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Code Division
Multiple Access (CDMA), Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), and the emerging
3G cellular communication standards In addition, we could consider the hardware used to
implement these different networking technologies, including

● LAN devices such as repeaters, concentrators, bridges, hubs, Ethernet switches, and routers
● WAN devices such as modems, ISDN terminal adapters, Channel Service Units (CSUs), Data Service Units (DSUs), packet assembler/disassemblers (PADs), frame relay access devices (FRADs), multiplexers (MUXes), and inverse multiplexers (IMUXes)
● Equipment for organizing, protecting, and troubleshooting LAN and WAN hardware, such as racks, cabinets, surge protectors, line conditioners, uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), KVM switches, and cable testers
● Cabling technologies such as coaxial cabling, twinax cabling, twisted-pair cabling, fiber-optic cabling, and associated equipment such as connectors, patch panels, wall plates, and splitters
● Unguided media technologies such as infrared communication, wireless cellular networking, and satellite networking, along with their associated hardware
● Data storage technologies such as redundant array of independent disks (RAID), network-attached storage (NAS), and storage area networks (SANs) along with their associated hardware, plus various enabling technologies, including Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) and Fibre Channel Or we could talk about various technologies that enhance the reliability, scalability, security, and manageability of computer networks, including
● Technologies for implementing network security, including firewalls, proxy servers, and virtual private networking (VPN), and such devices as smart cards and firewall appliances
● Technologies for increasing availability and reliability of access to network resources, such as clustering, caching, load balancing, Layer 7 switching, and terminal services
● Network management technologies such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Remote Network Monitoring (RMON), Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), Common Information Model (CIM), and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Returning to a more general level, networking can also be thought of as the various standards that underlie the
different networking technologies and hardware mentioned above, including
● The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) networking model from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
● The G-series, H-series, I-series, T-series, V-series, and X-series standards from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
● Project 802 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
● The Requests for Comment (RFC) series from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
● Various standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Frame Relay Forum, the ATM Forum, the Gigabit Ethernet Alliance, and other standards organizations Networking protocols deserve special attention in any definition of the word networking. These protocols include:
● LAN protocols such as NetBEUI, Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange
(IPX/SPX), Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and AppleTalk
● WAN protocols such as Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP), Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), Point-to- Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP), and Layer 2 Tunneling
Protocol (L2TP)
● Protocols developed within mainframe computing environments, such as Systems Network Architecture (SNA), Advanced Program-to-Program Communications (APPC), Synchronous Data Link Control (SDLC), and High-level Data Link Control (HDLC)
● Routing protocols such as the Routing Information Protocol (RIP), Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Protocol, and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
● Internet protocols such as the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), and the Domain Name System (DNS)
● Electronic messaging protocols such as X.400, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3), and Internet Mail Access Protocol version 4 (IMAPv4)
● Directory protocols such as X.500’s Directory Access Protocol (DAP) and the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
● Security protocols such as Password Authentication Protocol (PAP), Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP), Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) Authentication, Kerberos, IP Security Protocol (IPsec), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), and public key cryptography standards and protocols
● Serial interface standards such as RS-232, RS-422/ 423, RS-485, V.35, and X.21
We could dig still deeper and discuss the fundamental engineering concepts that underlie the various networking technologies and services previously discussed, including
● Impedance, attenuation, shielding, near-end crosstalk (NEXT), and other characteristics of cabling and other transmission systems
● Signals and how they can be multiplexed using time-division, frequency-division, statistical, and other multiplexing techniques
● Transmission parameters including bandwidth, throughput, latency, jabber, jitter, backbone, handshaking, hop, dead spots, dark fiber, and late collisions
● Balanced vs. unbalanced signals, baseband vs. broadband transmission, data communications equipment (DCE) vs. data terminal equipment (DTE), circuit switching vs. packet switching, connection-oriented vs. connectionless communication, unicast vs. multicast and broadcast, pointto- point vs. multipoint links, direct sequencing vs. frequency hopping methods, and switched virtual circuit (SVC) vs. permanent virtual circuit (PVC) We could also talk about the different types of providers of networking services, including
● Internet service providers (ISPs), application service providers (ASPs), and integrated communications providers (ICPs)
● Telcos or local exchange carriers (LECs), including both Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), that offer such popular broadband services as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) and High-bit-level Digital Subscriber Line (HDSL) through their central office (CO) and local loop connection
● Inter-exchange carriers (IXCs) that provide popular WAN services such as dedicated leased lines and frame relay for the enterprise (large companies)
● Local loop alternatives including cable modems, fixed wireless, and satellite networking companies We could also list the various software technologies vendors have developed that make computer networking both useful and possible, including
● Network operating systems such as Windows, Novell NetWare, UNIX, and Linux
● Specialized operating systems such as Cisco Systems’ Internetwork Operating System (IOS), which runs on Cisco routers, and the variant of IOS used on Cisco’s Catalyst line of Ethernet switches
● Directory systems such as Microsoft Corporation’s domain-based Active Directory, Novell Directory Services (NDS), and various implementations of X.500 and LDAP directory systems
● File systems such as NTFS file system (NTFS) on Windows platforms and distributed file systems such as the Network File System (NFS) developed by Sun Microsystems for the UNIX platform
● Programming languages and architectures for developing distributed computing applications, such as the C/C++ and Java languages, Microsoft’s ActiveX and Sun’s Jini technologies, component technologies such as Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) and COM+, inter process communication (IPC) technologies such as Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) and named pipes, and Internet standards such as the popular Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML) family of standards
● Tools for integrating networking technologies in heterogeneous environments, such as Gateway Services for NetWare (GSNW), Services for Macintosh, Services for UNIX on the Windows 2000 platforms, and Microsoft Host Integration Server, all of which provide connectivity with mainframe systems On an even deeper level, we could focus on the various administration tools for managing networking hardware, platforms, services and protocols, including
● The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and its various snap-ins in the Windows 2000 and
Windows .NET Server platforms
● The various ways routers and network appliances can be administered using Telnet, terminal programs, and the universal Web browser interface
● Popular TCP/IP command-line utilities such as arp, ping, ipconfig, traceroute, netstat, nbtstat, finger, and nslookup
● Platform-specific command-line utilities such as various Windows commands used for automating common administration tasks
● Cross-platform scripting languages that can be used for system and network administration, including JavaScript, VBScript, and Perl We could also look at various enterprise applications widely used in networked environments, including
● Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms
● Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) and Enterprise Knowledge Portal (EKP) platforms
● The Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family of applications that includes Microsoft Application Center Server, BizTalk Server, Commerce Server,Exchange Server, Host Integration Server, Internet Security and Acceleration Server, Mobile Information Server, and SQL Server I think that you can see by now that we could go on and on, slowly unpeeling our answer to the question “What is networking?” like the many layers of an onion. And it is pretty obvious by now that there is more to networking than just hubs and cables! In fact, the field of computer networking today is almost overwhelming in its breadth and complexity, and one could spend a lifetime studying only one small aspect of the subject. This has not always been the case. Let’s take a look now at how the field of computer networking has reached the amazing point where it is today.