IPv6: Today or tomorrow?

The industry has produced several well-documented mechanisms to support a transition to IPv6, including the dual-stack approach, translation (the direct conversion of protocols between IPv4 and IPv6) and tunneling. These mechanisms are amply documented by a family of RFCs. IPv6’s designers have developed mechanisms and address types so that IPv6 nodes can communicate with one another in a mixed environment, even if they are supported at the core by an IPv4 infrastructure.

Network address translation (NAT) has temporarily solved the issue of limited address availability. However, this use of NAT limits applications such as end-to-end public VoIP, global IP-based cellular service, large sensor networks and IP addressability of appliances ranging from automobiles to PDAs, home appliances, medical sensors and so on.

Nonetheless, the transition to an IPv6-based world has not yet gathered steam even though migration techniques, equipment and some requirements (such as the government mandate for U.S. Department of Defense) have existed for as long as a decade.

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The industry has produced several well-documented mechanisms to support a transition to IPv6, including the dual-stack approach, translation (the direct conversion of protocols between IPv4 and IPv6) and tunneling. These mechanisms are amply documented by a family of RFCs. IPv6’s designers have developed mechanisms and address types so that IPv6 nodes can communicate with one another in a mixed environment, even if they are supported at the core by an IPv4 infrastructure.

Network address translation (NAT) has temporarily solved the issue of limited address availability. However, this use of NAT limits applications such as end-to-end public VoIP, global IP-based cellular service, large sensor networks and IP addressability of appliances ranging from automobiles to PDAs, home appliances, medical sensors and so on.

Nonetheless, the transition to an IPv6-based world has not yet gathered steam even though migration techniques, equipment and some requirements (such as the government mandate for U.S. Department of Defense) have existed for as long as a decade.

Migration from IPv4 to IPv6 will not happen instantaneously; the expectation is that there will be a period of transition when both protocols are in use over the same infrastructure.

Organizations have been attempting to develop business cases showing some short-term financial benefit for migrating to IPv6. This is reminiscent of the desire for a business case to validate a move to VoIP in the late 1990s. At this juncture it is clear that VoIP is less expensive than traditionally priced telephony and may be less costly when considering the possibility of unified messaging and computer-telephony integration.

The introduction of IPv6 may need to parallel a more basic transition: the introduction of PC-based automation in the mid-1980s. It was difficult to anticipate the eventual macro-economy productivity gains in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when this technology was first being introduced. It took more than a decade for the intrinsic and synergistic value of the deployment of PC/server technology to be manifestly and explicitly evident.

The expectation is that at some point in time, IPv6 will have self-initiated pull, as more vendors bring products to the market. The transition may occur without much fanfare, initially on a case-by-case, application-by-application, island-by-island basis, until critical mass is achieved.

The macro-level advantages of IPv6 might not be evident for a decade from its first deployment. If the technology pull occurs around 2010, then the full value of IPv6 will be evident around 2020.

Protocol transitions are never trivial and the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is particularly complex. Protocol transitions typically are achieved by installing and configuring the new protocol on all nodes within the network. Although this might be possible in a small or midsize organization, the challenge of making a rapid protocol transition in a large organization or a carrier of any size (including an ISP) is challenging. IPv6 migration may be your goal, but you must first consider short-term coexistence of IPv4 and IPv6 nodes.