With the recent assignment of the last ipv4 /8 blocks to RIRs and the IPV6 day coming up now is probably the time to dual-stack your infrastructure.
In the following weeks I will try to document the process we're going through at Ubity to add IPv6 to our infrastructure.
The very first step was to get a block of IPv6 of course. We had two choices to get one :
- Ask one of our providers to assign us a block. This is pretty easy but means you don't own your block and it can become problematic if you ever decide to change providers
- Buy a provider-independant IPv6 block through ARIN. This is a better solution but has its requirements.
We decided to go through the second option and here is what is required to get an IPv6 /48 block :
- Be able to justify a 25% usage of an IPv4 /24 block (that's roughly 64 IPs used)
- Pay 1250$ for the assignment then 100$ a year
We were able to meet both criterias so we are now the proud owners of 2620:61::/48 !
Now on to actually using this block, here's what I still need to do to get it up and running :
- Reboot our core router (a stack of 3750) to enable the v4&v6 SDM template
- Setup new BGP sessions with my providers for ipv6 (I don't want to mix v4 and v6 announcements)
- Announce my block to my providers
- Set up test servers with dual-stack
- Set up our office router to support dual-stack (it's an Asus RT-N16 with Tomato firmware, I've read it supports dual stack)
- Start offering ipv6 services (beginning with the website, hopefully voip will follow)
New articles to come !