Touching / Seeing / Feeling IPv6 in the World of Solutions at Cisco Live Milan

As Cisco Live Europe 2014 draws to a close I wanted to reflect on what has (for me) been a personal campaign to raise the visibility of IPv6 in the World of Solutions / WoS (the demonstration / show floor of the event)

Last year at Cisco Live London I heard some comments that there was not enough IPv6 in the WoS. I decided to see if I could encourage Cisco Business Units and Partners to enable demonstrations for Dual Stack operation and highlight that fact. I wrote previously we would be “awarding” an “IPv6 Enabled Logo” to all Cisco and Partner demonstrations that took the step of enabling Dual Stack and highlighting the same fact.

How did we fare ? Cisco Live 2014 Milano showcased over 15 IPv6 enabled demonstrations including two which were enabled as “IPv6 only”. These were spread between Cisco and Partner booths and were mainly marked with the newly created green “IPv6 Enabled Logo”.

I personally visited a number:

Beginning with Cisco Business Units (and my colleague Patrick Grossetete who is a Distinguished Technical Marketing Engineer) Cisco’s Industrial team was showing the Cisco IR 500 implementation of MAP-T. The demonstrations showed how it allowed the distribution of (IPv4 based) meter and sensor data over an IPv6 only edge infrastructure. This demonstration was particularly exciting as it was not only showcasing IPv6 as a component but because it was one of two demonstrations of  “IPv6 only environments”.

Watch below to see me proudly present the “official IPv6 sticker” to Patrick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14otZiYRbjI

After Patrick attached the sticker to the demonstration units this is what was on public show for the Cisco Live audience.

Another demonstration featuring “IPv6 only / IPv6 centric” was the  Autonomic Networking demonstration. Amit Dutta presents the demonstration in the following clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYwLIgc6r5M

The LISP and IPv6 First Hop Security demonstrations were also proudly displaying the IPv6 Enabled Logo on their stand. These demonstrations highlight two distinct technologies that both help with IPv6  deployment:

LISP helps customers accelerate the deployment of IPv6 in the WAN (independent of the availability of Dual Stack in your provider’s VPN service)

IPv6 First Hop Security allows you to enable IPv6 in  your your campus and wireless access in secure fashion.  The advent of BYOD and the emergence of IPv6 on portable hand held devices makes this a particularly significant requirement.

The folks on the Cisco Prime Network Registrar who also shared their screen shot showing dual stack operation in action with me.

Other Cisco hosted demonstrations featuring IPv6 in action on Cisco hosted stands in the World of Solutions were:

Location Analytics with Mobile App Engage

High Speed Wireless Connectivity (802.11AC)

VSS Quad Sup SSO plus IA

Data center core

UCS on a IPV6 environment

ASR9k nV Satellite

Cisco Modeling Labs (based on Virtual Internet Routing Lab technology)

nLight/GMPLS UNI

I visited a number of Partners who had also enabled their demonstrations for dual stack operations and were showing IPv6 in action:

Packet Design was displaying the v6 enabled logo. I actually bumped into my old colleague Les Dodd who was showing the Route Explorer tool in operation. The screen capture he provided me clearly displays the dual stack operation in action. Angela Reyna is seen with me alongside the IPv6 Enabled logo

CA Technologies showed me how their NIMSOFT application can monitor dual stack enabled devices with version 7.1 of their software. I met Rudra Vethaviayasar . This photo shows me on the CA stand alongside our new Cisco IPv6 Enabled logo

cPacket Networks were displaying the same IPv6 Enabled logo as they had dual stack enabled their SPIFEE Network Visibility Platform I met Brendan O’Flaherty, who can be seen with me at the cPacket stand alongside the IPv6 Enabled logo

Mida Solutions explained to me how their eFramework suite of Cisco-compatible video and voice applications is available on a UCS Platform Ready virtual appliance. The application suite interfaces with Cisco UCM and it has a built-in dual IP stack supporting IPv4 and IPv6. I met Ronny Tittoto, seen with me on the Mida stand alongside the IPv6 Enabled logo

Splunk was also showcasing IPv6 dual stack operations in their Network Analytics tools. I am with Emanuele Pasqualucci alongside the IPv6 Enabled Logo

I am looking forward to CiscoLive San Francisco and beyond. My plans are to expand the program until we reach the point where every single demonstration in the World of Solutions that can be enabled for IPv6 operations will have been and we paint the whole Cisco Live WoS green !

I would love to hear your own experiences of Cisco Live / IPv6 and the demonstrations of the World of Solutions and I look forward to your comments.