NEW YORK & SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sept. 19, 2005 - New York University (NYU) has established native Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) multicast connectivity between its campus network and the global IPv6 Internet, the first connection of its kind in North America. This networking innovation is based on products and technologies from Cisco Systems, Inc., specifically Cisco Catalyst® 6500 Series and Cisco IOS® 12.2 SX software.
IPv6 multicast is a bandwidth-conserving technology that reduces traffic by simultaneously delivering a single stream of information to thousands of network nodes. NYU's native IPv6 multicast connections will replace previous "tunneling" methods and will deliver performance and service levels on par with native IPv4 multicast connectivity.
"This milestone event represents a significant evolutionary step in the growing deployment of IPv6 multicast," said Jimmy Kyriannis, senior technology architect at NYU's Information Technology Services group. "NYU has been an early adopter of IPv6 since its infancy and this accomplishment continues that trend."
NYU plans to test a number of IPv6-enabled applications and network services using its native multicast connections including Digital Video over IP (DVIP) and multicast-conferencing capabilities. It also plans to test network-layer multicast protocols such as Source Specific Multicast (SSM) and Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD), technologies that help network administrators better direct multicast traffic to recipients who actually want to receive the data.
Cisco has taken a leading role in the definition and implementation of the IPv6 architecture and the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series has been certified as "IPv6 Ready" in March 2004 by the IPv6 Ready organization. Cisco's complete portfolio of IPv6 solutions offers customers intelligent deployment flexibility and scalability for future service offerings. As such, IPv6 plays a strategic role in the Intelligent Information Network, Cisco's technology vision and roadmap for the evolution of networks to systems.
