IPv6 Task Group Charter
Mailing list: ipv6@sipforum.org – [Subscribe] [Archive]
SIP Forum Technical Working Group Director: Spencer Dawkins – spencer@wonderhamster.org
Task Group Co-Chairs: Gonzalo Salgueiro – gsalguei@cisco.com (Cisco Systems); Olle Johansson – oej@edvina.net (Edvina)
Task Group Chief Document Editor: Carl Klatsky – Carl_Klatsky@cable.comcast.com (Comcast)
Meetings: Meetings take place on a schedule established by the task group. You can stay informed about upcoming meetings by subscribing to the IPv6 Task Group mailing list (see link above).
SIP Over IPv6 Task Group Charter
The charter of the SIP Forum SIP Over IPv6 task group is to evaluate current best practices and enable and promote migration to SIP over IPv6. Migration to native IPv6 will take years to accomplish, due to the costs of transitioning networks from IPv4, as well as consumer products that have not yet widely adopted the IPv6 protocol.
The charter of this task group will, therefore, serve to identify issues with SIP over IPv6 as well as to evaluate the impact of transition technologies and dual stack devices on existing SIP networks.
The SIP Forum SIP Over IPv6 task group is chartered to accomplish the following tasks:
- Evaluate the current status of SIP over IPv6 based on standardization work in the IETF and other standard’s bodies or industry forums.
- Evaluate current technologies and strategies for IPv4/IPv6 co-existence and identify impacts of these technologies on SIP-based networks and the user experience.
- Review the work of technical entities, e.g. IPv6 Forum, UCIF, CEA IPv6 Working Group, UPnP, etc. to evaluate progress on adopting IPv6 within the industry, and where necessary develop formal liaisons with them to help coordinate efforts and avoid duplication of efforts.
- Function as a resource for SIP Forum members for technical information and advice on matters related to SIP over IPv6 and SIP in Dual IP networks, as well as infrastructure issues, such as stateful/stateless address auto configuration, security and others.
- Identify areas where existing standards for SIP over IPv6 and dual stack are inadequate or non-existent. This can be in technical documents, network architectures, standards, etc.
- Provide direction and technical leadership in resolving problems related to SIP when using IPv6, or co-existence technologies.
- Develop recommendations to standards organizations based on research, discoveries and suggested courses of action to remedy deficiencies uncovered by the SIP over IPv6 task group.
Participation in the Task Group
The board of directors of the SIP Forum has appointed Andrew Hutton of Unify (formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications), Olle Johansson of Edvina and Rifaat Shekh-Yusef of Avaya as co-chairs for this task group, to coordinate the creation of the various activities of the group. The various activities are intended to be open to all members—full, academic and participant—as determined by the Task Groups and the Working Group Chair.
The Task Group plans to meet via teleconference on a regular basis that is yet to be determined. The group has completed a Problem Statement that describes the various issues that are currently impacting the adoption of IPv6 in SIP-based networks, which can be found in the last section of this document.
The various activities are intended to be open to all members—full, academic and participant—as determined by the Task Group and the Working Group Chair(s).
Operations
The SIP Over IPv6 Task Group will establish various activities as required to support its charter. The specific meeting and operational schedule for each activity will be established by the co-chairs.
History
In June 2012, there were two sessions at SIPNOC US 2012 devoted to discussing the state of SIP Over IPv6 and identifying issues with the migration to IPv6. It was decided to create a task group that would begin the process of evaluating SIP in IPv6 or co-existence networks. The task group’s first order of business is to identify activities for the group to begin focusing upon.
SIP Over IPv6 Problem Statement
It is well known that the pool of available IPv4 addresses has been exhausted. At the same time, imminent needs for portable devices and smart devices in the home are continuing to drive a more abundant and available supply of IP addresses for SIP networks.
Although resale markets for IPv4 address space are beginning to emerge this is merely a short term solution to the problem. Similarly, the deployments of co-existence technologies (CGN/LSN, 6to4, dual-stack lite, NAT444, etc.) are merely methods to cope with the lack of native IPv6 in the network, or with CE devices that will remain completely reliant on IPv4. CE devices, in particular, have been extremely slow to adopt IPv6.
The combined impact of these issues has forced service providers, and any SIP based network administrators interested in delivering reliable services to ask these questions:
- Why is IPv6 important to me and what problems will it solve?
- How do I manage a transition to IPv6 in my network?
- What is IPv4/IPv6 co-existence? Why do I need it and how do I manage it?
- How do we get more CE devices to support IPv6? What does it mean to me if CE devices don’t support IPv6?
The purpose of the SIP Over IPv6 Task Group is to be a centralized sounding board for any matters relating to the migration to IPv6. In addition, we seek to identify any problems that relate to IPv6 and SIP, as well as with any of the transition technologies that seek to allow IPv4 and IPv6 co-exist.
Lastly, we seek to identify solutions to these problems, through discussion, forming sub-teams, and to ultimately contribute recommendations to official standards bodies, such as the IETF and the ITU.
SIP Over IPv6 Task Group Meeting Minutes and Related Documentation
For More Information
For more information, please contact Marc Robins, SIP Forum Managing Director, at marc.robins@sipforum.org or call +1-203-829-6307.