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6LINK
IPv6 Projects Linkage Cluster
Abstract
The 6LINK project aims to unite IPv6 projects across the IST Programme and beyond. It seeks to identify IST projects that have an interest in IPv6, including projects that may not mention IPv6 specifically in their definitions, and to bring representatives from identified projects together in a series of workshops. These workshops will serve to foster a common view of the status of IPv6 development and deployment in Europe and elsewhere, and will permit the identification of the most important issues for IPv6 deployment in Europe. The project seeks to identify common issues and promote shared understanding amongst all participants, and to disseminate this work to a wide audience. Dissemination vehicles will include an annual publication of reports compiled by members of the 6LINK consortium. In addition, the 6LINK project will establish an IPv6 resource centre which will serve as a repository for the outputs of 6LINK as well as providing an important source of up-to-date and detailed information about IPv6-enabled applications and IPv6 standards.
Objectives
The 6LINK project has three objectives. These are consensus-building, dissemination and exploitation. The European Commission is actively sponsoring a number of IPv6-related IST projects, and there are other bodies, for example Eurescom, that fund IPv6-related collaborative work. It is the objective of 6LINK to bring representatives of these projects together to identify common experiences and to share knowledge and understanding of the state-of-the-art with regards to IPv6 development and deployment in Europe. The second objective, dissemination, builds upon the consensus and understanding generated by the first objective and seeks to promulgate the agreements and analyses arrived at by the partners to as wide an audience as possible. The third objective is concerned with capitalising on the synergies developed through achievement of the first objective, by providing support to participants developing inputs to standards bodies, and by presenting 6LINK participants' submissions at standards meetings. The intention is to bring focus and clarity to the development and deployment of IPv6 in Europe, and beyond, in the hope that this will hasten its widespread adoption as the internetworking protocol of choice, and thereby give European industry and society an important advantage in the global information society.
6LINK
Technical Approach
In order to achieve the objectives set out above, the 6LINK project will adopt a work plan with elements to address the key areas of consensus-building, dissemination and exploitation. The core of the consensus-building work will be a series of workshops, held every four months throughout the project, at which partners will present and discuss the latest developments, both within the represented projects, and from the global IPv6 community. A global perspective will be achieved by including standards development reports as regular inputs to these workshops. As well as identifying commonalities of interest and important issues for IPv6 development and deployment in Europe, the workshops will agree specific subjects for written reports. These reports will be reviewed and agreed at subsequent workshops and will serve to bring focus and clarity to the subject of IPv6 development and deployment in Europe.
In tandem with the workshops, the project will establish an online resource centre, which will provide public access to 6LINK reports, IPv6-related IST news and developments, and will host a database of IPv6-enabled applications. This online resource centre will partly meet the objective of disseminating the work of 6LINK to as wide an audience as possible. To further the achievement of this objective, the project will publish books of these reports on an annual basis. The form of this publication is to be decided, but may take the form of the Lecture Notes in Computing Science.
In order to best achieve the third objective, exploitation, the 6LINK project will seek to identify opportunities for common trials across projects, to draw further benefit from the work being done in IST projects, and to build on contacts and partnerships forged at 6LINK workshops. 6LINK will monitor standards development activities being undertaken as part of represented projects and will provide services to these projects in the form of presentations at standards meetings, document review and editorial support. The 6LINK project will serve to co-ordinate inputs to standards bodies from all of the represented projects and will take an active role in promoting the standards development work of 6LINK participants at standards meetings, provided that there is no contravention of the rules governing participation in the standards body in question by so doing.
Expected Achievements and Results
It is expected that 6LINK will foster an improved understanding throughout the IST community of the most important issues for IPv6 development and deployment. 6LINK will publish 3 books on the subjects deemed most important by the participants in 6LINK workshops. 6LINK will also serve to heighten awareness of the status of IPv6-related standards development, and will help to promote the standards work of participant organisations within the relevant standards bodies
Innovation
The 6LINK project provides the first, and only, forum for IPv6-related IST projects to come together and discuss important issues. Prior to the 6LINK project, collaboration and discussion between projects took place informally. 6LINK provides a formal, funded framework for such collaboration, and sets clear objectives for the participants in terms of deliverables. 6LINK will serve to identify and document the important issues for IPv6 development and deployment in Europe. 6LINK provides the first forum for dissemination of developments in the commercial, academic and standards arenas that is focused exclusively on IPv6 technologies.
- Project name:
- 6LINK
- Contract no:
- IST-2001-34056
- Project type:
- Accompanying Measure
- Start date:
- 01/03/2002
- Duration:
- 36 months
- Total budget:
- €1,017,805
- Funding from the EC:
- €805,000
- Total effort in person-months:
- 67.3
- Website:
- http://www.6link.org
- Contact person:
- Mr. Matthew Ford
- email: matthew.ford@bt.com
- tel: +44 131 662 9543
- fax: +44 131 662 9543
- Project participants:
- BT - UK
- Consulintel - E
- CRM - F
- DANTE - UK
- Telscom - CH
- TERENA - NL
- T-Nova - D
- UC3M - E
- UCL - UK
- UoS - UK
- UPM - E
- Keywords:
- Cluster
- IPv6
- Collaboration with other EC funded projects:
- 6NET
- 6WINIT
- ANDROID
- Euro6IX
- GCAP
- GÉANT
- LONG
- MIND
- MobyDick
- NGNLab