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| Latest UNH-IOL 'Moonv6' Test Launches IPv6 Application Testing The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) has completed a weeklong round of testing on the "Moonv6" network, the world's largest multi-vendor IPv6 network. The event showcased the first successful public demonstration of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) running on a native IPv6-only connection. During the week of tests, which began July 24 and concluded July 28, the UNH-IOL ran mixed applications traffic (voice, video and data) between its network testing lab in Durham, New Hampshire and the U.S. Army's data-communications interop testing facility, the Joint Interoperability Test Command, in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Engineers at both locations passed data back and forth across firewalls systems via native IPv6 links as well as mixed v4 and v6 links using transition mechanisms such as domain name systems (DNS) mapping. DNS is key in dual-stack migration for knitting IPv4 and v6 networks together during the transition. Participating vendors included: Agilent, Check Point Software Technologies, Extreme Networks, Fortinet Inc., IBM, Lucent, Nominum, QLogic and Spectracom Corp. Spectracom used its NetClock application to synchronize network time between client PCs in New Hampshire and servers at the JITC facility. NTP allows computers to synchronize their time clocks via servers keyed to universal coordinated time (UTC). NTP is crucial in military networks for ensuring field operations are precisely synchronized. It's also important in anti-hacking and disaster recovery efforts, where understanding what happened to which computers when can make crucial differences in the ability to decipher otherwise contradictory data. A North American IPv6 Task Force project, Moonv6 has focused the cooperation of the UNH-IOL, Internet2, various U.S. government agencies, technology organizations, networking equipment companies and service providers to advance the adoption of IPv6 in North America. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Networking News :: home page |