We are running out of unique global IP addresses, and experts believe that it won’t be long before all 4.3 billion are in use.
This is the reason as to why there’s so much talk about the transition from Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). Organizations now have to be capable of handling IPv6 users globally, even though the organizations might already have all the IPv4 addresses they need. Municipality of Herning has chosen to react to this situation.
Municipality of Herning takes action
Municipality of Herning is the first of the major Danish municipalities who has upgraded their data network and made both internal and external networks IPv6 ready.
The idea was born on a Conscia seminar on IPv6 held in the spring of 2010. And Herning Kommune knew from the start that they wanted Conscia as counseling experts in the process of making their IP network IPv6 ready.
With the upgrade of the IP network, Municipality of Herning has made sure that electronic citizen service is secured for the future. This means that the e-services which the municipality makes available – when it comes to schools, institutions and governance – will be able to handle that more and more communication in time will be based on IPv6.
The municipality has started with a special IPv6 address for their homepage. When citizens who themselves are on an IPv6 network access ipv6.herning.dk, the web address is identified via a unique IP address, which is based on the new internet protocol.
CIO of Municipality of Herning, Steffen Ørnemark, has a declared goal: “We want to be frontrunners when it comes to good citizen service in the municipality”. And the partnership between the municipality and Conscia is exactly what is helping Steffen Ørnemark realize his ambitions.
The solution
Municipality of Herning has a robust IPv4 network built with its own Autonomous System number, its own IPv4 addresses and with internet connections (peerings) to different service providers, which ensures the best possible accessibility to the municipality’s e-services.
Multi-protocol BGP peerings on IPv6 has been added to this fully redundant IPv4 network, and the municipality’s Cisco network now has Dual Stack support end-to-end. This means that IPv4 and IPv6 traffic can be routed to and from Herning Kommunes network simultaneously.
Today, Municipality of Herning’s data network consists of close to 300 servers on several service networks, which covers every e-service the municipality offers to its citizens – e.g. via libraries, schools, city hall and Citizen Service. The data network also contains approximately 2000 LAN segments spread on more than 250 locations and 700 wireless access points.
