General

Hitachi Heats Up European IPv6 Deployment

The European Commission has chosen Hitachi, an IP addressing pioneer, to supply the equipment for its Euro6IX research and development coordination initiative.

by ISP-Planet Staff [March 15, 2002]

The rapid growth of the Internet and the corresponding increasing demand for Internet access has created a shortage in conventional IPv4 addresses. The proliferation of mobile wireless devices, information appliances and other Internet-connected devices has only aggravated the situation, particularly in Asia and Europe.

IPv6, the next generation of Internet protocols, not only fulfills the demand worldwide for increased IP addresses, but it also provides end-to-end enhanced security, easy and quick customer provisioning and enhanced efficiency.

Hitachi Europe Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., Japan, is headquartered in Maidenhead, U.K. It has operations in 11 countries and employs over 650 people across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Hitachi Internetworking is the global sales and marketing unit for the HitachiGR2000 gigabit router product and part of Hitachi America, Ltd. Both Hitachi divisions are early developers of IPv6 technology.

So what's it take to be considered an IPv6 pioneer?

For starters, as early as 1997, Hitachi utilized IPv6 technology with the deployment its first address translation IPv6 router in Japan and Europe. The company is also a founding member of the IPv6 Forum, a key contributing member of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and a sponsor of the European IPv6 Internet Exchanges Project (Euro6IX).

In June 2001, Hitachi's GR2000 was one of the first Gigabit class routers to support IPv6. The router provides performance at wire speed rates of up to 2.4 Gbps.

Paul Hodgson, Hitachi business development manager, said at the time that its GR2000 is the first gigabit-class router to offer the IPv6 standard in its hardware, and it has the key advantage of allowing IPv4 and IPv6 networks to run simultaneously within the same box. Hodgson added that interoperability is essential for allowing carriers and service providers as they begin to upgrade their networks to IPv6.

In September 2001, Hitachi was one of the first companies to deploy a commercial IPv6 network—linking seven major cities in Europe. The Scandinavia-based network adopted Hitachi's GR2000 gear to route both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic.

So it comes as no surprise that Hitachi Internetworking announced it is providing the hardware-based IPv6 solutions for the European Commission's Euro6IX project. Most major worldwide carriers and IPv6 proponents will be participating in the three-day Madrid 2002 Global IPv6 Summit this week.

Euro6IX was launched by the European Commission in December 2001. It coordinates the work of major European Telecom companies, equipment manufacturers, solutions/software providers, research laboratories, Universities, and end users.

Jordi Palet, Technical Coordinator of the Euro6IX project, explains that the initiative is the largest research project ever funded by the European Information Society Technologies Programme (IST).

"The prime objective of the Euro6IX project is to research the appropriate architecture, and to validate the first Pan-European pre-commercial IPv6 Internet Exchange Network," Palet said. "The network will connect several regional and strategic neutral IPv6 Internet Exchange points across Europe, achieving higher levels of robustness and service quality than currently offered by IPv4 Internet Exchange Networks."

The rapid growth in demand for Internet access has caused a shortage in conventional IPv4 addresses. The increase in address space, from 32 bits to 128 bits (an increase from 256 x 256 x 256 x 256 IP addresses worldwide to 4,294,967,296 x 4,294,967,296 x 4,294,967,296 x 4,294,967,296 IP addresses), will accommodate any device wishing to connect to the Internet. Mobility, quality of service, auto-configuration, end-to-end connectivity, security, anycast and multicast, and more efficient packet processing are some of the key progressive features that will be realized in IPv6.

As households become increasingly connected, IPv6 is expected to bridge the so-called "digital divide" by providing users the ability to connect to the Internet in a more efficient and simple manner.

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