ORION is leading the way in helping its users adopt the next generation Internet protocol, and extending IPv6 peering beyond the research and education community to other networks and commercial providers.

As a result, it is providing an incentive to migrate to the new protocol and addressing what some say is a looming crisis.

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses, which connect computers and other devices to the Internet, are widely expected to run out by 2012. The Internet Protocol, IPv6 was introduced to address this issue, which is growing in part due to the proliferation of devices - cell phones, cars, appliances, watches - that require an IP address. As well as providing better support for QoS (Quality of Service) and security, IPv6 provides greater IP addressing capacity, since it uses 128 bits to assign IP addresses, rather than the 32 bits available with IPv4.

ORION, which has enabled IPv6 traffic on its network backbone from its beginning in 2003, recently started exchanging IPv6 traffic with other networks and commercial providers at the ORION Optical Exchange in Toronto. They include CANARIE, the National Research Council, Google, Q9 Networks, Cogeco Data Services, Hurricane Electric, Nexicom, Tek Savvy Solutions and Sentex Communications. More are expected to join in the months ahead, says ORION's Senior Director Engineering and Network Operations, Sam Mokbel.

ORION is also actively working with its user organizations and providing support and expertize to institutions making plans to deploy IPv6 within their own network infrastructure.

The University of Toronto, for instance, has already deployed IPv6 in some areas of its campus infrastructure. ORION this week invited user organizations that are ready to start receiving IPv6 traffic to coordinate directly ORION engineers, who have been working with several Ontario colleges and universities that are making plans to deploy IPv6.

"We are making our team of engineers available to help with design, configuration, and set-up of external IPv6 connectivity," said Mokbel, who notes that ORION was among the first R&E networks in the world to fully support IPv6.

Early use of IPv6 was sporadic and mostly used for network testing and research, explains Mokbel. Most commercial service providers did not previously support IPv6, and ORION institutions did not have strong incentives to support it either, because most destinations were only reachable via IPv4. However, that is changing as more network providers begin to support IPv6 and a growing number of networks and organizations start to make the investment to support both protocols.

However, supporting IPv6 can be a major undertaking for institutions, since it involves their information technology systems, network devices, management and control applications and support staff.

"As ORION increases its IPv6 commercial peering arrangements and more destinations and applications become reachable, members will have the justification they need to invest in IPv6," said Mokbel.

CANARIE, Canada's advanced research and innovation network, recently announced that it is also establishing IPv6 peering with a number of ISPs and providing full IPv6 connectivity to its members and connected institutions.