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NORTH AMERICAN IPv6 TASK FORCE KICKS OFF NEXT PHASE OF Moonv6

The North American IPv6 Task Force, a sub-chapter of the IPv6 Forum dedicated to the advancement and propagation of IPv6 in the North American continent, announced that the second phase of testing on Moonv6, the world's largest multi-vendor IPv6 network, has begun. Moonv6 phase II will continue to provide the North American market with strong validation for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), through demonstrating IPv6's effectiveness under operative conditions, and ultimately launch a native IPv6 backbone available for peering from anywhere in the world.

Taking place across the United States at multiple locations, the Moonv6 project represents the most aggressive collaborative IPv6 interoperability and application demonstration event in the North American market to date. The Moonv6 project is a collaborative effort between the North American IPv6 Task Force (NAv6TF), the University of New Hampshire -- InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), Internet2, the Joint Interoperability Testing Command (JITC) and various other U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) agencies. Moonv6 phase I, launched in October 2003, involved approximately 80 servers, switches and routers from major networking companies and stretched from Durham, N.H., to California.

The U.S. military has joined forces with major networking companies and Internet service providers in launching this second phase of tests that will focus on the backbone technology of the next-generation Internet protocol, IPv6, and launch Moonv6 as a global IPv6 resource. Moonv6 phase II will assess aspects of the IPv6 protocol key to widespread deployment of the new technology, which is due to replace the Internet's current data transport protocol, IPv4, over the next several years.

The testing, which began March 7 and runs through March 19, will cover network routing protocols, applications, security and transition mechanisms. Verification of routing, application and security functionalities is important because commercial deployment of IPv6 depends in part on confidence in the technology's ability to run applications with a high degree of stability and security over complex, distributed networks. Transition mechanisms will be key during the migration from IPv4 to IPv6, during which the two protocol versions will coexist.

Following the current series of tests, Moonv6 will remain in place as a native IPv6 backbone available for peering from anywhere in the world. It will serve as an ongoing test bed for industry, universities, research labs, Internet providers and the JITC along with the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and other government agencies, to assist in the evolution of the next-generation Internet protocol, IPv6, for full, wide-scale adoption and deployment throughout North America.

Spokespeople from the NAv6TF, the UNH-IOL, the JITC and Internet2 will make public preliminary results from Moonv6 phase II and answer questions about Moonv6 in a joint press conference scheduled for 2 p.m. EST on Monday, March 22.

"The NAv6TF vision for the development of Moonv6 is to eventually create a Native IPv6 backbone peering that will, in time, permit production services as new applications develop and entice markets to come to the Moonv6 evolution," said Jim Bound, chair of the North American IPv6 Task Force and chair of the IPv6 Forum Technical Directorate.

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