2012 Internships

Benjamin Paterson (X09)

Benjamin Paterson (X09)

Benjamin Paterson (X09) – Using OSPF to Distribute IPv6 Prefixes Within a Home Network

In home networks comprising internal routers, running a DHCPv6 client on the edge router is not sufficient for providing global Internet connectivity to the whole network, as it does not provide a way for all internal links to receive a global IPv6 prefix. Benjamin’s work consisted of developing a distributed algorithm which, given a site-wide delegated prefix, allows all links in an arbitrary-topology home network to be assigned a global prefix. The algorithm uses OSPF to flood the delegated prefix as well as assignment decisions made by routers. A proof was given, of the algorithm’s correctness, prefix space efficiency and resilience to site prefix or topology changes, and a working implementation using the BIRD OSPF routing daemon was developed. Two improvements to the algorithm were also suggested, one in order to avoid prefix space exhaustion if links support prefixes of length other than 64, the other to specify relative importance of links in the event that prefix exhaustion does happen.

Benjamin’s work was ultimately standardised by the IETF and published as RFC7695 – Distributed Prefix Assignment Algorithm

Furthermore, Benjamin won a “Prix de Stage de Recherche” for this internship – recognising it as being among the top-10% of all internships at Ecole Polytechnique in 2012.

Benjamin proceeded to do a Masters degree at Stanford University, then went to work for Microsoft in Redmond – where he is currently employed.

Arthur Lacoste (X09)

Arthur Lacoste (X09)

Arthur Lacoste (X09) – IPv4 to IPv6 transition – Stateless tunnelling and the MAP technology

Cisco MAP Calculator

Cisco MAP Calculator

With the IPv4 to IPv6 transition in progress, and internet service providers looking for cost-effective solutions to provide their users with both IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity, many transitional approches use various forms of  IP tunnelling, And yet, these transitional approaches are very different from one another. Arthur set out to analyze and compare numerous tunneling-based IPv4 to IPv6 transition mechanisms by highlighting the consequences of their core design discrepancies – giving specific attention to understanding the impacts of a given mechanism being state-full vs. state-less. He then focused on one state-less tunnel mechanism called MAP (“Mapping Address and Port”) technology, for which he built a simulation tool. Arthur also conducted a thorough study of “real internet traffic” with the objective to detect and quantify how much IPv6 tunneled traffic, and more specifically 6rd traffic, was flowing across the Internet.

While the actual measurements that Arthur undertook were, of course, of of short-term interests, the longer-term interest of Arthur’s work was the experimental methodology and the software tools he developed.

One very visible product from Arthur’s internship is, for example. the iPhone app Cisco MAP Calculator.

Martin Raison (X09)

Martin Raison (X09)

Martin Raison (X09) – IP Mobility Architectures – Analysis, Performance and Comparison

Many different protocols currently exist to enable mobility-management in IP networks. Among them figure already standardized protocols such as MIPv6 or PMIPv6, as well as new models currently under review (e.g. DMM). The first part of Martin’s work was to proposes a generic model for mobility, in order to provide a ground on which mobility solutions can be compared, and then to analyse and describe the different mobility-management mechanisms in an abstract manner. The generic model included mobility management entities (binding node, access gateway, binding management function), as well as mobility concepts such as mobility domains or hierarchical mobility, and analysed the the handover time, a central indicator for measuring the quality of a mobility experience, in detail. After an exhaustive comparison of different mobility management mechanisms, the second part of the Martin’s work consisted of integration of Cisco’s PMIPv6 code in a Linux environment, targeting a deployment of the PMIPv6 Mobile Access Gateway functionality on CERs (Customer Edge Routers).

Martin proceeded to do a Masters degree at Stanford University, went on to create a start-up, which was later acquired by Facebook – where he is currently employed.

Hugo Kaczmarek (X09)

Hugo Kaczmarek (X09)

Hugo Kaczmarek (X09) – Internet IPv6 Adoption: Methodology, Measurement and Tools

 

Hugo’s work gave rise to the popular  Cisco 6Labs web-tool.

Hugo proceeded to do a Masters degree at  Columbia University in the City of New York, and is now working as Product Manager at Criteo.