IPv6 Challenge Stems New Projects

30/07/2018

Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UADY, Mexico) successfully participated in the third edition of the IPv6 Challenge, organized by the LACNIC Technical Forum and LACNIC’s R&D department to promote the latest Internet Protocol in the region.

The team representing UADY developed a special project for the IPv6 Challenge, implementing a lab to offer different IPv6 services (IPv6 website, DHCPv6, NAT64/DNS64 and the first deployment of a dual-stack IPv6 network within a university building.)

The award was presented at the LACNIC 29 event in Panama, where the winning team was represented by Carlos Rico Blanco and Enrique Solís Pomar, who worked under the coordination of Emmanuel Serrano Piña, Wilberth Pérez and Carmen Denis, all of them representing Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.

Enrique Solís pointed out the reasons that motivated UADY to participate in the IPv6 Challenge organized by LACNIC, among which he mentioned the opportunity to contribute in a way that will benefit Mexico and the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the possibility of motivating and raising awareness of the importance of transitioning to IPv6 at the University, and the chance to offer continuing education on topics related to Internet development for the university network (IPv6, RPKI, DNSSEC, among others).

The UADY team expressed their satisfaction with having participated in this experience. First, because it allowed them to assume new challenges that will help them move forward with their IPv6 deployment strategy at the university and form a team with members of multiple IT departments, including interns – Lucía Cab, Efraín Ceca and Diego Aguilar– who are still studying and participated proactively in their laboratory tests. Second, it allowed them to draft the first instruction sheets for the knowledge base that feeds and supports the process of providing IT services to the university network. Finally, Solis noted that, above all, “it highlighted the value of collaboration among the working team, breaking down barriers to the sharing of knowledge and experiences.”

Participating in the challenge helped raise awareness of the importance of IPv6 deployment. “It has given us valuable knowledge and helped us to raise awareness among the community that manages the university network’s Internet resources and network technologies, ranging from UADY’s IT Manager and the experts that manage the network, to those who can influence decision-makers to enable strategies for the adoption, acquisition, and deployment of UADY’s new technological solutions,” noted Solis.

The challenge has also allowed UADY’s team to learn about the progress and needs of various institutions in terms of IPv6 use and deployment. To them, this type of competition “helps reflect on the importance of IPv6 adoption in our university, which is necessary if we are to continue providing IT services in the face of an imminent increase of new users – students and academics – with multiple devices and UADY’s own infrastructure – closed-circuit systems, telephony, connectivity, sensors, IoT – without losing sight of the challenge of enhancing the Internet ecosystem at the university: security, adoption of best practices, and the development of new native IPv6 applications.”

As for IPv6 deployment, the UADY team pointed out that educational institutions “are being slow in responding to the process of adopting the new protocol, at least in Mexico, when compared to other Latin American and Caribbean institutions.”

In the last five months, UADY has organized different activities to disseminate and promote the IPv6 protocol, including an IPv6 Day activity at the University itself; a conference titled IoT and IPv6: Together and Indispensable at Universidad Politécnica de Yucatán (UPY), which was attended by more than 200 students and professors from technological institutes of the State of Yucatán; and the Yucatán IXP Forum, organized jointly with the Yucatán Development Agency.