Networks

How the End of IPv4 Affects Email and Hosting

Anyone who has been watching the technology industry for more than a couple of years quickly learns to recognize FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. FUD is (apparently) widely believed to be an effective marketing technique, especially when it comes to security, privacy, or scarcity. But the FUD often falls flat. Scarcity, in particular, is rare on the internet -- even rarer than privacy or security. There's constant FUD about scarcity of bandwidth, but the pipes get upgraded. Attempts to impose artificial scarcity through paywalls or other devices inevitably fail in the face of free alternatives. Even the scarcity of IPv4 addresses, which have indeed run out at the top, hasn't affected end users at the bottom yet -- and probably won't, for a long time.

Recent Enhancements to ARIN’s whoIS-RWS Service

ARIN deployed a series of enhancements to its Whois-RWS service today. This includes enabling CIDR support and IPv6 lookups in the search box on the web page, provided plain text rendering of lists of ASNs and networks on the web - plus enhanced CIDR query matching on WHOIS port 43.

Cable Trounces the Telcos

Yesterday, Netflix posted graphs of how well various ISPs deal with Netflix video streams. The results are striking. All the cable companies easily beat all the phone companies with the exception of Verizon where we're seeing a mix of DSL and FiOS results.

Some Observations on Reachability of Egyptian Networks and Providers

Different media are reporting that Internet and other forms of electronic communications are being disrupted in Egypt. Presumably after a government order in response to the protests. Looking at BGP data we can confirm that according to our analysis 88% of the ‘Egyptian Internet’ has fallen of the Internet. In this post I’ll share some observations I made with regards to the reachability of Egyptian networks and providers.

21st Century Triple Networks: Ubiquitous 4G, WiFi, & Wires

The best engineers on the planet are coming to the same conclusion: a hybrid 4G/WiFi/landline network is the way to meet mobile demand. Folks like John Donovan of AT&T and Masayoshi Son of Softbank in Japan had this vision around 2007-2008. As the iPhone/iPad/Android made the coming demand clear, networks planners around the world evolved similar strategies.

Addressing 2010

It's January again, and being the start of another year, it's as good a time as any to look at the last 12 months and see what the Internet was up to in 2010. This is an update to the report prepared 12 months ago when looking at 2009, so lets see what has changed in the past 12 months in addressing the Internet, and look at how address allocation information can inform us of the changing nature of the network itself.

Uptake of IPv6 in All Regions

Our recent cooperation with the OECD on IPv6 deployment inspired us to provide more IPv6 deployment statistics to a wider audience - from network operators to national governments. The result is an infographic that shows the percentage of networks or Autonomous Systems that announce one or more IPv6 prefixes in the global routing table. This metric shows how many networks have actually deployed IPv6 in a country or group of countries.

Why DNS Blacklists Don’t Work for IPv6 Networks

All effective spam filters use DNS blacklists or blocklists, known as DNSBLs. They provide an efficient way to publish sets of IP addresses from which the publisher recommends that mail systems not accept mail. A well run DNSBL can be very effective; the Spamhaus lists typically catch upwards of 80% of incoming spam with a very low error rate. DNSBLs take advantage of the existing DNS infrastructure to do fast, efficient lookups. A DNS lookup typically goes through three computers...

IPv6 and Transitional Myths

I attended the RIPE 61 meeting this month, and, not unexpectedly for a group that has some interest in IP addresses, the topic of IPv4 address exhaustion, and the related topic of the transition of the network to IPv6 has captured a lot of attention throughout the meeting. One session I found particularly interesting was one on the transition to IPv6, where folk related their experiences and perspectives on the forthcoming transition to IPv6. I found the session interesting, as it exposed some commonly held beliefs about the transition to IPv6, so I'd like to share them here, and discuss a little about why I find them somewhat fanciful.

Cisco Collaboration Summit - Where Unified Communications Could Be Going

This year's Cisco Collaboration Summit was a step up from last year, and I say that for good reason. Last year's event was good -- all of Cisco's events are good -- but the venue was too small and it took away from the messaging. For 2010, Cisco went out of town to the classy and classic Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix. They don't build them like this anymore, and to me, this setting did far more justice for what Cisco has to say about collaboration.