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ProCurve Networking by Hewlett-Packard Co., the Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer giant's networking unit, is shipping a software update that allows its switches to be managed and deployed at the edge of networks running IPv6, the new IP addressing scheme.
The software update is for ProCurve Switch series 8200, 6200, 5400 and 3500. The update also includes a new feature called QinQ, which lets customers build large campus or metro-area networks based on Ethernet connectivity.
Taufique Ahmed, ProCurve's product marketing manager for the Americas, said the new features improve security, convergence, ease of deployment and diagnostics.
The update also enhances IP telephony deployments. Providing IPv6 networking for IP applications such as telephony results in a seamless and consistent user experience, Ahmed said. The additions also speed up IP telephony deployments by automatically configuring VLANs for IP phones using new Radius attributes and LLDP.
The updated switch software has undergone interoperability testing with other vendors, Ahmed said, and the IPv6 Forum has approved it as "IPv6-ready." The IPv6 Forum estimates that addresses for IPv4, IPv6's predecessor, will be depleted in just over four years, making it a requirement to cut over to IPv6 or to a dual-stack mode in which IPv4 and v6 are run together. The U.S. government is under a mandate to switch to IPv6 by the middle of this year.
Kevin Kabat, ProCurve's sales and marketing director, commercial business segment for the Americas, said the updates reinforce a promise ProCurve made to the channel with the announcement two years ago that its 3500 and 5400 series switches had IPv6 capabilities built into the hardware.
So far, Kabat said, channel partners have been asking about IPv6 in peaks and valleys: Many are talking about it, but few have begun offering IPv6 capabilities to clients.
"Partners want to know where they stand," he said, adding that ProCurve wants to train and talk to partners about IPv6 plans both they and their customers have. "We want to make sure the partners have that kind of information."
Kabat said many ProCurve partners are trained in IPv6 and ready to go. Susan Jabbusch, vice president of Carolina Advanced Digital (CAD), a Siler City, N.C.-based solution provider, said the addition of IPv6 support to ProCurve's lineup is a breath of fresh air, especially since CAD had recently started to miss out on new federal accounts because the company did not offer IPv6.
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