Chapter 13. Deploying IPv6 in an MPLS Service Provider Network

The first part of this book provided the tools and the knowledge necessary to design and operate IPv6 networks and services. Because you now have an understanding of the technology, we shift our focus to the system perspective of a deployment. IPv6 features are put together in the context of an existent IPv4 network to provide scalable, high-performance, and valuable services. These exercises intend to provide practical design examples for some of today's network types and to put the accumulated IPv6 knowledge into the end-to-end service context of three case studies.

This chapter presents the design of IPv6 services and their deployment in a service provider that is using Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) in its core. It is a rather common network type in today's major service provider market. The IPv6 deployment is based on the 6PE/6VPE features that leverage the existent MPLS infrastructure. (See Chapter 3, "Delivering IPv6 Unicast Services," and Chapter 7, "VPN IPv6 Architecture and Services," for details on these features.) This case study covers all aspects of rolling out and operating IPv6-based services, including the following:

• Existent IPv4 network and services overview

• Review of IPv6 service offering plans and their relationship to the IPv4 ones

• Design objectives and reasons for making certain design choices

• Design and implementation of basic IPv6 servicesunicast transport and VPN

• Design and implementation of other featuresQoS, security, network management

• Troubleshooting techniques

The goal of the chapter is to provide a working solution to deploying IPv6 in such an environment; however, more important, it goes through the process of designing, implementing, and running such a deployment.