Kamailio/SER 10 years old
The first SIP software we used in Edvina was SER, Sip Express Router, from iptel.org, a spinoff from the Fokus research institute in Berlin. The development team gathers world leading SIP experts and developers, so it’s a joy to meet them and brainstorm and share experiences. In almost all our installations and platforms, a SIP proxy is at the core of the real time multimedia platform. Our choice has always been SER/OpenSER/Kamailio.
Starting as a SIP proxy, moving on as an extensible SIP server
Sip Express Router started as an Open Source SIP Proxy. Today we see Kamailio, based on the common sip-router.org core, as an extensible SIP server. With an embedded presence server, http support and interfaces to python and lua for scripting, it’s a platform that can handle many different roles in a large-scale SIP architecture. IPv4 and IPv6 support from the beginning, security integrated and a very active development team. Everything you need to build a standard-compliant cool network for your organization’s real-time communication. 10 years of success.
Jubilee September 2nd, 2011 where it all started
The 3rd of September marks 10 years since the start. Reason to celebrate, don’t you think?
The Sip-Router team will celebrate on Friday, September 2nd and into the night. FhG Fokus Research Institute hosts a one-day conference session with all the core people. If you have any interest in SIP and these platforms, make sure you will be there.
The event is organized with sponsorships from FhG Fokus Institute, Asipto, Amooma and TeamForrest. At the same time local events will be organized in Barcelona, Spain and Vienna, Austria. Read the agenda and register today!
Let’s start the World IPv6 Year!
Today was the World IPv6 Day. A huge worldwide event for content providers to test dual stack access to their web servers. In Sweden, we organized a technichal IPv6 conference today, with many good talks.
So far, it seems like nothing happened. Which means that we can simply say “Don’t panic” to content providers. Making your web sites available for IPv6 won’t hurt your customer base. Everything will work as before. You won’t get millions of hit over IPv6 today, but access over that protocol will slowly grow and you will be part of the Internet growth. IPv4 has reached the end, growth will happen on IPv6.
This means that it’s time to focus on IPv6 in all projects. Make sure that all new solutions support IPv6. Do not start a new development project without IPv6 support. Do not buy new equipment without IPv6 support. Do not start new VoIP projects without IPv6.
Edvina has been active with IPv6 for many years. And we will continue to work with IPv6. We’re founding the Swedish IPv6 Forum together with the .SE foundation. We organized the first Nordic IPv6 conference with the IPv6 forum years ago. Last year, we hosted the SIPit 26 test event for VoIP vendors, with a focus on IPv6. We can’t say that we’re experts after all the years, but we’re surely focused and totally committed to make sure our customers move forward and stay connected to the Internet. Fully. With both IPv4 and IPv6.
And we’re going to clean up outside our own door to. We have native IPv6 in our data center, DNS, e-mail, network management, VPNs and our office connected to IPv6. The web site will soon be there. Step by step we’re building experience and enhancing our knowledge – from the basics to security, VoIP and routing.
Make sure your organization stay connected too. Make the coming 12 months the IPv6 year for your IT platforms. Educate, test, develop, deploy. Let’s stay connected, let’s move to IPv6!
IPv6 Ripeness – Sweden is lagging behind
RIPE, the European IP registry, does regular measurements on the “IPv6 ripeness” of all the Local Internet Registries in Europe. A LIR is typically an Internet Service Provider or a large company that acts as their own Internet provider, maybe to get multihoming solutions for their services.
In Sweden, Ripe shows that 52% of the 255 LIRs have no IPv6 assignment. We’re not the worst country, but not in front either. The EU plan was originally that everyone should have IPv6 access now, but these statistics shows that we’re far away. Daniel Karrenberg writes more about RIPE’s IPv6 Ripeness statistics in an article published on CircleID.
Time to put pressure on your local ISP to get IPv6 – Now!
SIP & IPv6 :: The action plan, version 0.8
Feb 1st, 2011: Bye bye IPv4
Today, the IANA has allocated the last two remaining IPv4 address blocks to APNIC, the registry for the Asia/Pacific region. This means that the remaining five blocks will be distributed according to the “Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space” evenly amongst the registries. And we’re out.
IPv4 will remain forever
This does not mean that we have NO IPv4 addresses, there are plenty. And the addresses you have won’t be taken away from you. You can still get addresses from RIPE, ARIN and the other registries if you really need them. The clue is in the last part of the previous sentence. You have to prove that you need them and that you will start using them immediately. If you get IPv4 addresses for your services from a hosting provider, getting new addresses will get expensive soon.
IPv6 is the Internet growth path
IPv4 can no longer handle the Internet growth. We will have to start using IPv6 for new services and applications, and new Internet connections. Otherwise, everyone will be behind large NAT servers. Not good for applications, not good for users and not good for performance.
What to do?
The panic is not in the network, your servers and services will continue to run. The panic is in the lack of knowledge and experience of IPv6 in your team. You need to put pressure in starting to work with IPv6 on all fronts, implementing it as a natural part of every project. Regardless if it’s about cloud services, unified communication, web sites, business support systems or e-mail. IPv6 needs to be there and you need everyone to accept that it’s a network just as natural as the IPv4 networks they are used to and know how to work with.
Dual stack solutions – good or bad?
When you start learning about IPv6 you can find a lot of old information out there. The protocol has been around more than 15 years and have changed. In those days, the concept of computers with dual stacks was a common thing. We used a PC-LAN network stack (IPx, netbeui, Arcnet, 10net) alongside the TCP/IP stack. And there was still a lot of IPv4 addresses around. The concept of dual stacks – one with IPv4 and one with IPv6 was launched as a natural way to migrate. After all, network engineers was used to handling dual stacks.
The world has changed. Network engineers have used single stacks for a long time. And the old dual stack concept was not shared by the same applications. In this dual stack world, with two IP stacks, applications are supposed to use both stacks, which causes a whole new set of issues. And we’re running out of IPv4 addresses, so we can’t assume that all new hosts will get proper addresses.
I strongly think we have to start adding hosts with IPv6 only, and start preparing the architecture for living with two networks. In many cases, an IPv6 only network with the support of NAT64 is easier to handle than a dual stack network. I think we’re beyond the point where dual stacks is the solution for all computers that we will attach to the network.
IPv6 – from snail-pace to VIP lane
The good thing is that even with dual stacks, IPv6 will be the better choice. Today, IPv6 is often implemented with tunnelling solutions, which means that connections have lower performance over IPv6. As we move along and implement non-tunnelled IPv6 in the networks, users will notice that IPv4 will be hidden behind multiple layers of NAT and IPv6 will be the faster network to use. Applications should make the preference a user configurable option, not something hidden in the application.
To summarize:
- The global pool of free IPv4 addresses has been distributed to the registries today, making the global pool empty
- IPv4 will remain, but will not handle Internet growth
- You need to make IPv6 part of regular work, not a special project
- Use dual stack for public services, but do not assume it for every host on the Internet
Today is the beginning of the next phase of the Internet. Don’t miss this phase and lock yourself and your organization into the old network.
/Olle E. Johansson