The Next Internet

Layer 3 routing, IPv6, and IP Multicast are all technologies set to take off -- or stay on hold.

Scott Mace

The Internet is always changing. But the bigger it gets, the more painful change becomes. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) continues to crank out new standards, and new technologies dazzle attendees twice a year at the Networld+Interop show. But in the real world, progress toward upgrading all routers with a common set of new services is proving to take longer than anyone thought.

Nevertheless, in 1998 we'll see some progress. IP Multicast, for instance: UUnet Technologies recently rolled out an IP Multicast servi ce. UUCast lets content providers transmit a single stream of information and simultaneously reach hundreds of thousands of people by using standard IETF IP Multicast protocols. Prior to this, multicast-like services used proprietary multimedia streaming technologies.

But the outlook for IP version 6 (IPv6) tends to be a lot murkier. Originally designed to replace IP version 4, IPv6 was first and foremost conceived to provide a bunch more IP addresses at a time when the Internet was supposedly running out of them. But IPv6 also acquired a number of other capabilities along the way, including support for new real-time services, improved security, and automatic configuration.

The result has been unwieldy, progress of standards has been slow, vendors have coded their own proprietary (and incompatible) extensions to IPv4, and users and vendors have grown their own techniques to get around IPv4's limitations.

Consequently, IPv6, via the 6bone, will remain an ex periment. Meanwhile, vendors are getting a lot more out of IPv4. For instance, Cisco Systems has a translator that lets devices reuse IP addresses in different, isolated subnets, translating from these private addresses to public ones only when the devices access the public Internet.

What's still missing from the Internet is a standardized way of providing Layer 3 routing in a switch. Offerings include IP Switching, from Ipsilon Networks, Fast IP, from 3Com, Tag Switching, from Cisco Systems, and Secure Fast Virtual Networking, from Cabletron. The IETF's Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) has a good chance to become a standard for Layer 3 switching, and Cisco's IP product line manager, Martin McNealis, predicts that MPLS will find its way into Cisco products in late 1998.

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Where to Find

Cisco Systems

San Jose, CA
Phone:    408-526-4000
Internet: 
http://www.cisco.com



UUnet Technologies

Fairfax, VA
Phone:    703-206-5600
Internet: 
http://www.uu.net




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Breaking the Internet Router Bottleneck

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Newer switches can route packets between networks at Layer 3. This routing relieves congestion on traditional routers but has not yet been standardized among all switches.

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Cisco Systems and UUnet Technologies in 1998

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AT A GLANCE: IP Multicast services will let Web sites present many more video streams, and MPLS will provide Layer 3 routing, but IPv6 addressing remains el usive.

WHO SUPPORTS IT: Internet Engineering Task Force, Cisco, Bay, 3Com, Ipsilon, Cabletron, UUnet, StarBurst, Real Networks.