IPv6 An Overview of Internet Protocol Version 6 Network Management Justin Houk May 3, 2010

What is IPv6? History Reasons for IPv4 vs IPv6 Transition ARE WE DOOMED???  Disney

IPv6 Packet IPv6 is a connectionless, unreliable datagram protocol that is primarily responsible for addressing and routing packets between hosts.

History of IPv6 IPv4 initiated with RFC 791 in 1981 Late 1980s need for growth apparent 1992 Internet Engineering Task Force calls for “Next Generation IP” with RFC RFC 2460 released beginning series on Internet Protocol Version 6 IPv6

Reasons for IPv6 Exponential growth of Internet and looming end of IPv4 address space Ability of Internet backbone routers to maintain large routing tables Need for simpler configuration Requirement for security at the IP level Need for better real-time delivery of data support or QoS

Exponential Internet growth from the early 1990s to the present

Only 8% Address Space Left as of 1Q 2010

IPv4 Address Space 32 bit address space allocation allows for 4,294,967,296 addresses Limited by previous allocations and reserved addresses Network Address Translator – Map a single public IP address to multiple private IP addresses

IPv6 Address Space IPv4 – Four 8-bit octets for 32 bits 2 32 or 4,294,967,296 address IPv6 – Eight 16-bit fields for 128 bits or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607, 431,768,211,456 or 3.4 x addresses 665,570,793,348,866,943,898,599 or 6.65 x addresses for every square meter of the Earth’s surface

The following is an IPv6 address in binary form: The 128-bit address is divided along 16-bit boundaries: Each 16-bit block is converted to hexadecimal and delimited with colons: 21DA:00D3:0000:2F3B:02AA:00FF:FE28:9C5A IPv6 address further simplified by zero suppression: 21DA:D3:0:2F3B:2AA:FF:FE28:9C5A

IPv6 Hexadecimal Easier to convert between hexadecimal and binary than decimal and binary Kept in hex due to size and ease of computer translation, not human aesthetics

IPv6 addressing scope Unicast – Address that represents a single interface on a device (Network Adapter) Multicast – Represents multiple interfaces for transmitting the same data at the same time (Similar to broadcast in IPv4) Anycast – Any one interface from a group can accept a transmission (First available in a router bank)

Unicast address format showing variable Format Prefix Multicast address format showing variable Format Prefix

IPv4 vs IPv6 Class

IPv4 vs IPv6 Header

IPv6 Transition Compatibility IPv4 Compatible vs Mapped Address Migration Dual Stacking Tunneling

IPv4/IPv6 Compatibility IPv4 Compatible Address IPv4 Mapped Address

IPv6 Migration

Dual Stacking Run IPv4 and IPv6 at the same time IPv6 preferred protocol Nodes IPv4 Only IPv6 Only IPv6/IPv4 IPv4 IPv6

IPv6 over IPv4 Tunneling

Manual Tunneling Configured at both ends Addressing and routing static More secure Dynamic Tunneling Created automatically based on addressing and routing Simplified maintenance Less secure

Conclusion Time to switch? Early Adopters – Google, Comcast, Government Effect on business world