IPv6 has a "red" start, and Internet giants are showing their talents!

After "getting up early and arriving late", IPv6 has benefited from favorable policies and has had a good start. my country's large-scale deployment of IPv6 has initially formed a good development situation in which networks, applications and terminals are promoted in a coordinated and parallel manner. However, compared with other countries with faster IPv6 development in the world, there is still a big gap.

Whether it is based on the timetables of operators or Internet giants, they are basically advancing according to the time points. However, due to the long time behind, in the catching-up stage, all enterprises in the industry chain should have "advanced awareness". To borrow the words of Qin Hai, director of the Information Development Bureau of the Central Cyberspace Administration of China, "I think the benefits of walking on time are that you may not miss a bus, but as a leader, you have to speed up. Walking on time gives people the feeling of squeezing the last bus."

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IPv6, which started early but caught up late, has a good start

my country put the development of IPv6 on the agenda in 2003, which was a very correct and timely strategic decision. After five years of development, the first phase achieved the predetermined strategic goals. However, since 2008, the development of IPv6 in my country has slowed down and started to lag behind the international level.

After "getting up early and arriving late", IPv6 has benefited from favorable policies and has had a good start. Yang Xiaowei, deputy director of the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, said, "2018 is the first year for promoting the large-scale deployment of IPv6. It has started well and progressed smoothly."

"The IPv6 transformation of network facilities has achieved phased results. Basic telecommunications companies have focused on end-to-end IPv6 upgrades of LTE networks, accelerated the transformation of networks, terminals and self-operated businesses, and have achieved initial results, accumulating valuable experience for completing the task of network-wide transformation," said Yang Xiaowei.

The IPv6 upgrade of Internet applications has been further accelerated, and the enthusiasm and initiative of Internet companies for IPv6 upgrades have been further enhanced. The top 50 commercial websites and applications in China have formulated relatively clear upgrade and transformation plans, and most typical Internet applications will complete the transformation tasks before the end of this year; the IPv6 transformation plans for the websites of central government agencies, provincial and municipal governments, news and radio and television media websites, and external websites of central enterprises are also being actively promoted, and some websites have initially completed the transformation tasks.

In addition, the industrial environment supporting the development of IPv6 has become more mature, communication equipment manufacturers and mobile smart terminal manufacturers have accelerated product iteration and upgrading, and the IPv6 support of network equipment and terminal equipment has been greatly improved, and the bottleneck constraints of terminals on the development of IPv6 have been changed. Overall, my country's large-scale deployment of IPv6 has initially formed a good development situation in which networks, applications and terminals are promoted in a coordinated and parallel manner. However, compared with countries with faster IPv6 development in the world, we still have a relatively large gap and need to continue to vigorously promote it in the next step of work.

"In terms of network infrastructure, the three basic telecommunications companies have completed the IPv6 transformation of LTE networks in 26 provinces and hundreds of cities, and allocated IPv6 addresses to LTE users. Currently, the total number of users to whom basic telecommunications companies have allocated IPv6 addresses exceeds 70 million," said Zhang Feng, member of the Party Leadership Group and chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

In terms of application infrastructure, large data centers of basic telecommunications companies already support IPv6 and have basically established IPv6 service acceptance and activation testing processes; some content distribution network companies and cloud service platform companies have completed IPv6 transformation of some products and are gradually providing IPv6 commercial services.

In terms of Internet applications, major Internet companies have formulated IPv6 transformation implementation plans for Internet applications with large user volumes and concentrated traffic, and related transformation work is being carried out in an orderly manner; the portal websites and some self-operated business systems of basic telecommunications companies have completed IPv6 transformation and provide services to users. In terms of terminals, major domestic LTE terminals basically have IPv6 support capabilities, and most terminals are configured by default to support IPv4/IPv6 dual stacks.

Operators will continue to play the role of "locomotive"

The speed of a train depends on the locomotive! Driven by the three major operators, my country's IPv6 has finally entered the fast lane.

"Basic telecommunications companies are the national team and main force in promoting the large-scale deployment of IPv6 in my country. The completion of IPv6 transformation of network infrastructure by basic telecommunications companies is a prerequisite for achieving the growth of IPv6 user scale and network traffic." Wen Ku pointed out, "The three major operators have taken LTE networks as a breakthrough point and steadily promoted the end-to-end IPv6 transformation of LTE networks. Currently, the LTE networks of the three operators in 26 provinces have the ability to allocate IPv6 addresses to users and provide data business services. The portal websites of the three major operators, China Telecom's 189 mailbox and 189 mailbox APP, China Mobile's mobile mailbox, and China Unicom's mobile business hall APP have all completed IPv6 transformation."

According to Li Zhengmao, deputy general manager of China Mobile, "So far, China Mobile's backbone network has been completely upgraded to IPv6. Some cities and regions in 24 provinces have completed the end-to-end transformation of LTE networks. LTE users in the transformed areas have the ability to access mobile Internet IPv6 applications, covering more than 200 million LTE users. 67 IDCs across the country have completed IPv6 transformation."

In terms of interconnection, China Mobile has opened an IPv6 link at the Shanghai Pudong International Gateway with a bandwidth of 50G, completed the IPv6 transformation of the Internet backbone direct connection points in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, and Chengdu, and opened an IPv6 domestic network interconnection bandwidth of 762G.

Liu Guiqing, deputy general manager of China Telecom, said, "China Telecom's mobile network has been opened in 156 cities, with IPv6 addresses distributed to nearly 129 million users, and fixed-line users opened to nearly 8.7 million users. In addition, China Telecom has opened 20G IPv6 international traffic exports, including interconnection with friendly companies, large-bandwidth connections, and the provision of self-operated businesses, products and related services."

China Telecom's broadband network equipment has basically achieved IPv6 transformation, from cloud, pipe, end, backbone, metropolitan area access to home network, and has been fully transformed to IPv6. At present, China Telecom's metropolitan area network transformation has exceeded 96%, and the backbone network, international network interconnection, IDC, and support systems have all completed IPv6 transformation.

From the perspective of 4G mobile networks, China Telecom has fully supported IPv6 from the service side, core network, wireless network and user terminals. Liu Guiqing said, "Currently, more than 80% of mobile terminals already support IPv6, especially some can be better supported after software updates. From wireless networks, EPC core networks, IMS service networks and operating systems, IPv6 is 100% supported."

It is understood that China Telecom's IPv6 users and traffic have achieved very rapid growth in the past two months. Currently, China Telecom's IPv6 user penetration rate has reached 6.8%, while before that it was less than 1% and only 0.8%. "

At this forum, China Unicom demonstrated to the public for the first time the application of IPv6 in LTE, home broadband and government and enterprise dedicated line services, as well as related IPv6 upgrade and transformation services and capabilities.

According to Shao Guanglu, deputy general manager of China Unicom, in terms of network capabilities, the IPv6 support rate of China Unicom's backbone Internet equipment is 100%, the IPv6 support rate of IP metropolitan area network equipment is 97%, and the LTE network has completed the IPv6 version upgrade. At the same time, internationally, a 20Gbps interconnection export has been built. Domestically, a total of 3050Gbps of IPv6 interconnection bandwidth has been opened with China Telecom, China Mobile and China Broadcasting Corporation.

In terms of public services, LTE network IPv6 data services are currently provided in some cities (urban areas) in 15 provinces (cities) including Beijing, Guangdong, Shandong, Hubei, etc.; fixed broadband network IPv6 services are available in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Jinan, Qingdao, etc. At the same time, the group's portal website and mobile business hall app for public users have completed IPv6 transformation.

In terms of government and enterprise services, China Unicom's IDC business currently provides IPv6 services in Langfang, Hohhot, Gui'an, Harbin bases, and four-star and above IDCs in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Jinan, Qingdao, and Hangzhou. Government and enterprise dedicated line services provide IPv6 services in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Jinan, Qingdao and other cities. In addition, IPv6 MPLS VPN provides IPv6 services throughout the entire network.

Internet giants "show off their talents"

As a key link in the IPv6 industry ecosystem, the role played by the Internet cannot be underestimated. "The Internet is a key infrastructure that cannot be separated from economic and social life. Mobile phones, networks, various wearable devices, everything is connected to the Internet, so it is very important." Wen Ku pointed out, "In this link, in terms of websites and applications, IPv6 issues are particularly critical."

Ma Bin, vice president of Tencent, said, "Tencent has opened up and empowered its IPv6 capabilities of 1,300 nodes and 100 reserved bandwidths in 50 countries to all partners and industries. We have actually done a lot of work in terms of infrastructure as well as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS."

Ma Bin revealed that Tencent's IPv6 promotion is divided into three steps. The first is the compatibility of IPv4 and IPv6. In 2018, IPv4 is still the main one, and IPv6 is compatible. In 2020, we hope to gradually complete the end-to-end IPv6 transformation, at which time IPv6 and IPv4 can run in parallel on the cloud. Around 2022, we hope to be able to seamlessly switch our architecture to users.

"In terms of the evolution roadmap, from 2018 to 2019, the first step is to encapsulate SDN, so that IPv6 can be transmitted in the existing Internet network, provide an easy-to-use and secure network entrance, and also provide conversion from IPv4 to IPv6. In 2020, the underlying core and routing protocols will coexist in two sets. In 2021, the underlying protocol core network and network transmission will adopt the IPv6 architecture. After the business layer is based on IPv6, it will be compatible with IPv4. Our final result is the evolution to CDN. We hope that during the period of IPv4 dominance, IPv6 will be compatible with IPv4. The customers of the company access IPv6 through the proxy server, and the CDN mainly uses IPv4 for data transmission. During the coexistence period, including in the future, the IPv6 network environment will mature and CDN will natively support IPv6 access. "Ma Bin pointed out, "Tencent's entire product upgrade route, Tencent Cloud will support 50% IPv6 in 2018, including news, video, browser, and App Store. In 2019, 80% of applications will be reflected in it, such as QQ, WeChat, and mailbox will enter the pilot stage, and all applications will be supported in 2020."

Alibaba Vice President Liu Song revealed that Alibaba hopes to complete the IPv6 transformation of its four most important traffic products, namely Tmall, Taobao, Alipay and Youku, in 2018. At the same time, Alibaba Cloud, as the world's third largest and China's largest cloud computing company, will also complete the transformation of all major scenarios in 2018 to help government and enterprise customers as well as small and medium-sized enterprise users smoothly and efficiently obtain high-quality experience and enjoyment of the next generation of Internet applications in the future.

Fu Qingming, vice president of JD.com and head of JD Cloud's basic R&D, pointed out that JD.com's IPv6 strategy relies on the transformation of middle-layer components and underlying networks. "Our entire evolution framework is bottom-up. First, we will solve the problem of IPv4 and IPv6 conversion in our infrastructure. Secondly, we will transform important products on JD Cloud and JD Mall.

Fu Qingming said, "First, we will make the core network accessible to the four major operators and small and medium-sized operators, all operators that support IPv6, so that the cloud-pipe-end layer can first solve the IPv6 access. Secondly, we will gradually implement dual stacks for external entrances such as DNS and load balancing, so that old IPv4 users can continue to use them, and new IPv6 users will gradually access our services, so that the two can coexist. At the same time, the metropolitan area network also supports dual stacks. We will reflect CDN in the form of backbone networks. Later, the entire infrastructure will fully support dual stacks and further down, making IPv6 the main way of network access, and IPv4 as a supplement."

Liu Ning, deputy director of Baidu's network, said, "In terms of system platform development, Baidu's IPv6 DS operation has completed preliminary transformation. In terms of demonstration application implementation, Baidu Search's snapshot has also completed IPv6 online. In Baidu Cloud, elastic IP and load balancing products have been released."

Unlike several other Internet companies, Liu Ning believes that "dual stack now brings huge improvements in both OPEX and CAPEX. In fact, IPv6-only may be a good solution."

Eco-chain enterprises should not be content with "taking the last bus"

Although it has had a good start, the overall development trend of IPv6 in China is still "time-sensitive and task-heavy."

Yang Xiaowei said, "Overall, my country's large-scale deployment of IPv6 has initially formed a good development situation in which networks, applications and terminals are promoted in a coordinated and parallel manner. However, compared with countries with faster IPv6 development in the world, we still have a relatively large gap."

Huang Chengqing, vice president of the Internet Society of China, pointed out that the development of IPv6 in my country is far behind that of developed countries in Europe and America, and even far behind India and Vietnam in Asia. According to the latest data from APNIC Labs (Asia Pacific Internet Information Center Laboratory), there are 32 countries in the world with an IPv6 user penetration rate of more than 10%, including Belgium and India with an IPv6 penetration rate of more than 50%, the United States and Germany with an IPv6 penetration rate of more than 40%, and China with an IPv6 user penetration rate of less than 1%, ranking 71st in the world.

"As of the end of last year, the proportion of IPv6 users in China accounted for only 0.3% of the country's Internet users, ranking very low in the world, far behind developing countries such as India and Vietnam." Wu Hequan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chairman of the Internet Society of China, said that through the efforts of all parties, gratifying progress has been made. The proportion of IPv6 users will increase from 0.3% to 5%, and the annual target is 20%.

Qin Hai, director of the Information Development Bureau of the Central Cyberspace Administration of China, used a very thought-provoking sentence when commenting on the plans and roadmaps of the Internet giants for large-scale commercial use of IPv6. "It should be said that this roadmap is realistic and based on China's existing technical capabilities, industrial ecology and the expectations of our users. However, we are not detailed and precise enough on the timeline. Because from the plans released by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, the time is already halfway through, but the task is not yet halfway through, and there is still a long way to go to achieve our desired goal."

Whether it is the planning of operators or Internet companies, they are all advancing according to the time point. However, due to the long time of lagging behind, in the catching-up stage, all enterprises in the industry chain should have a forward-looking consciousness. To borrow Qin Hai's words, "I want to use the benefits of walking on the time point. You may not miss a bus, but as a leader, you have to speed up. Walking on the time point gives people the feeling of squeezing the last bus."

As Yang Xiaowei emphasized, promoting the large-scale deployment of IPv6 is a major systematic project to promote the development of the next generation Internet. The time is tight and the task is heavy. All departments, units and enterprises must adhere to high quality and high standards, carry forward the "nail-in-the-coffin" spirit, work closely together, and go all out to implement the action plan.

First, we must attach great importance to the implementation of the action plan. All departments, units and enterprises must strengthen their sense of responsibility, perform their duties and fulfill their responsibilities. Unit leaders must take charge personally, take effective measures, adhere to problem-oriented approach, make up for the shortcomings in IPv6 applications, and work hard to achieve results by the end of the year.

Second, give full play to the main role of enterprises. Basic telecommunications enterprises should do a good job in upgrading network infrastructure, and equipment manufacturers should eliminate IPv6 blind spots and promote end-to-end connectivity. Large Internet companies should accelerate the upgrading of their own business systems, play the leading role of platforms, create IPv6 applications in the business ecosystem, promote third-party entities to support IPv6 for various platform services provided, and accelerate the guidance of IPv6 traffic transformation.

Third, carry out supervision and inspection conscientiously. All units and enterprises should strengthen supervision and inspection of the implementation of work, regularly analyze progress, supervise and inspect the quality and progress of work, promptly resolve difficulties and problems encountered in the implementation of the action plan, and ensure the smooth implementation of the tasks clearly defined in the action plan.