INTERCONNECTS

ANN ARBOR, MI -- Internet2 today announced that the nationwide Abilene backbone network now offers native next generation Internet Protocol (IPv6) service. This deployment makes high-performance IPv6 service available to over 200 Internet2 member institutions and thousands of other research and education institutions across the United States that have access to Abilene. The deployment in Abilene also marks the first large scale deployment in the United States of native IPv6 on Cisco System's 12000 series routers. Abilene's native IPv6 service complements existing IPv6 deployment in other research and education networks around the world, such as ESnet in the United States, Renater in France, and SURFnet in the Netherlands. "The Cisco 12000 Series Internet Router plays a prominent role in next-generation IPv6 networks. Abilene is a great example of continued success and innovation around this technology," said Tony Bates, vice president and general manager, High End Routing Group. "As pioneers of IPv6 technology, Cisco helped to shape the definition and development of IPv6 and today leads the industry with IPv6 protocol and platform breadth allowing the Internet2 Abilene network to provide cutting-edge IPv6 services" "Deploying native IPv6 continues Abilene's evolution as a leading-edge network environment that supports the development of new applications," said Steve Corbató, director of backbone network initiatives for Internet2. "We believe the deployment of IPv6 could be critical to sustaining the scalable growth and innovation that has distinguished the Internet's development over the past 30 years." IPv6 is the next version of the Internet protocol, updating the data packaging and routing standard. The current version is IPv4; IPv5 was experimental and was never widely deployed. IPv6 offers several improvements over IPv4. Most importantly, with 128-bit long Internet addresses instead of the 32-bit addresses of IPv4, IPv6 vastly increases the number of addresses available which, along with other improvements, paves the way for a large range of new applications. For more information about IPv6 activities in the Internet2 community, see: http://ipv6.internet2.edu/