1. PROJECT REPORT
ON
IPv6
SUBMITTED TO
MIT PUNE’s
MIT SCHOOL OF TELECOM MANAGEMENT
Under the Guidance of
Prof. Suman Verma
BY
UDIPTO GHOSH
PRN: 11041
Batch: 2011-2013
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT
(PGDM)
TELECOM
SPECIALIZATION: SYSTEM
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3. Introduction
IP (short for Internet Protocol) specifies the technical format of packets and the
addressing scheme for computers to communicate over a network. Most networks
combine IP with a higher-level protocol called Transmission Control Protocol (TCP),
which establishes a virtual connection between a destination and a source.
IP by itself can be compared to something like the postal system. It allows you to
address a package and drop it in the system, but there's no direct link between you and
the recipient. TCP/IP, on the other hand, establishes a connection between
two hosts so that they can send messages back and forth for a period of time.
There are currently two version of Internet Protocol (IP): IPv4 and a new version
called IPv6. IPv6 is an evolutionary upgrade to the Internet Protocol. IPv6 will coexist
with the older IPv4 for some time.
Nearly a decade after IPv6 was finalized, the network industry has yet to embrace the
new protocol. That‟s because a forklift upgrade to IPv6 is too expensive and time
consuming for a carrier or enterprise, with little measurable return. Instead, the network
industry anticipates a gradual transition to IPv6, which will likely run side by side with
IPv4 for many years to come.
Internet Protocol Version 6
IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) is also called IPng (Internet Protocol next generation)
and it is the newest version of the Internet Protocol (IP) reviewed in the IETF standards
committees to replace the current version of IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4).
IPv6 is the successor to Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4). It was designed as an
evolutionary upgrade to the Internet Protocol and will, in fact, coexist with the older IPv4
for some time. IPv6 is designed to allow the Internet to grow steadily, both in terms of
the number of hosts connected and the total amount of data traffic transmitted.
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4. IPv6 is often referred to as the "next generation" Internet standard and has been under
development now since the mid-1990s. IPv6 was born out of concern that the demand
for IP addresses would exceed the available supply.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) recognized in the early 1990s that there
was a high probability that the address space would be exhausted by the rapid growth
of the Internet, and it concluded several years of debate and analysis with the design of
a new, extended address format called IPv6. (IPv5 was an experiment in stream
applications that did not scale and was abandoned.) IPv6 had a small number of new
features and a format intended to expedite processing, but its principal advantage was
128 bits each of source and destination host addresses.
While increasing the pool of addresses is one of the most often-talked about benefit of
IPv6, there are other important technological changes in IPv6 that will improve the IP
protocol:
No more NAT (Network Address Translation)
Auto-configuration
No more private address collisions
Better multicast routing
Simpler header format
Simplified, more efficient routing
True quality of service (QoS), also called "flow labeling"
Built-in authentication and privacy support
Flexible options and extensions
Easier administration (say good-bye to DHCP)
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5. IPv6 Return on Investment
Many features of IPv6, taken separately, do not provide, at this time, sufficient ROI to
justify a full upgrade, end-to-end, of the network, the operating systems and the
applications.
Each feature has an equivalent fix in IPv4.
Large legacy installed base (IPv4-only)
The combination of IPv6 features help provide a better ROI, but still usually not
sufficient.
Choices:
Upgrade the whole network, OS, apps.
Provides all the good features of IPv6
Incremental deployment
Get the good features of IPv6
Lower cost for deployment
Risk is manageable. Outcome is positive.
Wait until the very last minute
Do not benefit IPv6 features behind.
Difficult to catch up market.
Loose market share.
Innovation
A dual-stack IMS must address the scenario of an IPv4 end user establishing a
connection with an IPv6 user. The issues with IPv4/IPv6 interoperability are similar to
those with NAT traversal to support IPv4 private addresses [3, 6]. ICE can be used to
solve both NAT traversal and IPv4/IPv6 interoperability issues. In ICE, peers determine
available addresses from each realm to which they belong and select a preferred
address. ICE requires extensions to the SDP [10], listing “candidates” under a media of
type IPv4 or an additional media of type IPv6. ICE can be used in conjunction with
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6. alternative network address types (ANAT) [8], which supports SDP extensions for
alternative addresses of different types, IPv4 or IPv6. Thus, ICE supports the transition
to IPv6. For the scenario where an IPv4-only user connects to an IPv6-only user,
protocol translation cannot be avoided and an IMS ALG is required.
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7. IPv6 Transition Issues
The worldwide transition from IPv4 to IPv6 has already begun, with IPv6 existing side-
by-side with IPv4. It is likely that this transition will occur at different rates in different
regions of the world. Some regions are already moving aggressively to support IPv6.
The following issues affect the transition strategy:
The end-user address allocation and proxy discovery mechanism must be able to
determine whether to default to IPv6 or IPv4 for access to a dual-stack IMS
There must be IPv4/IPv6 interoperability support (i.e., decisions must be made
as to whether to support NAT-Protocol Translation (NAT-PT) [19] and how to
support the domain name server [DNS] in a dual-stack environment)
There must be 3GPP UMTS access point name (APN) flexibility. (IMS can be
configured as a service under its own APN.)
The IP version of the transport network must be determined.
The 3GPP supports IPv6 privacy extensions to the PDP address [4, 11]; for IMS,
the IPv6 privacy extension should be prohibited to avoid invoking a re-registration
at the IMS.
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8. Challenges & Opportunities
Need
IPv6 application to deploy to home networks.
Support issues and reachability to end nodes are veryimportant.
IPv4 networks
Traceability/Anti-spoofing (legal considerations)
Solution
IPv6 in IPv4 tunnels with NAT traversal
AAA with permanent addressing for users.
Prefix delegation
TSP client in either home gateway or in end node.
Applications
Need to be converted to IPv6.
Change of network API.
Operating system: Need to be IPv6 enabled
Network:Lan, enterprise, edge, access, distribution, core, exchange, Internet,
exchange, core, distribution, access, edge, enterprise, Routers, firewalls, DNS,
VPN servers, network management, Servers
It is only when all pieces are IPv6 enabled that an IPv6.
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9. Advantages of IPv6
IPv6 offers the potential to build a much more powerful Internet, with vastly larger
scale compared to the current situation. Addresses in IPv4 have only 32 bits,
allowing for only about 4 billion addresses compared to 128-bit IPv6, with some
340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses.
Complexity has been introduced into the way that IP based-networks are already
implemented because of address space shortage.
IPv6 has a new feature called auto configuration. This feature allows a device to
generate an IPv6 address as soon as it is given power. Using this 'link local'
address, there is no immediate need for any other infrastructure to allow that
device to begin communicating via IPv6 on its local network, including
communications with another local host or router.
While some of the new features possible in IPv6 based networks are currently
possible in IPv4 based networks, the critical exception is that they do not support
the scale that IPv6 does, making it difficult or impossible to use them to meet
current and future business requirements.
IPv6 address allocation is done by the device itself and can occur independently
of a server, or in conjunction with an IPv6 enabled router, as appropriate.
Disadvantage of IPv4
Rapid Growth of the Internet and the Exhaustion of the IPv4 Addressing.
IPv4 Security at IP Level.
Internet Backbone Maintaining Large Routing Tables.
Quality of Service Concern in IPv4.
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10. Conclusion
IPv6 is an important part of the evolution to next generation telecommunications
systems. Not only do standards specify the change, but industry projections of
limitations, such as those enumerated above, that would be solved by IPv6 will dictate
the changeover in the market. Once the hurdles of resistance to change and lack of
experience with IPv6 are overcome, the transition will accelerate in both wireless and
wire line networks.
IPv6 ROI needs incremental deployment for most cases
Incremental deployment enables low upfront cost and early service availability.
TSP Tunnel Broker is a technology for incremental deployment and ubiquitous
IP.
Recommendation
IPv4 address space is depleted. People who have been ignoring IPv6 for years need to
start paying attention. It is real—and really important. IPv6 deployment projects seem to
be revealing two successful patterns and one unsuccessful pattern. The unsuccessful
pattern is to scream that the sky is falling and ask for permission to upgrade
“everything.”
The lessons we have learned:
1. Proposals to convert everything sound crazy and get rejected. There is no obvious
business value in making such a conversion at this time.
2. Work from the outside in. A load balancer that does IPv6-to-IPv4 translation will let
you offer IPv6 to external customers now, gives you a “fast win” that will bolster future
projects, and provides a throttle to control the pace of change.
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11. References
1. Google IPv6 Conference. IPv6, Nokia, and Google (2008);
shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5RbyK0m5OY.
2. Miller, R. The billion-dollar HTML tag
(2009);http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/06/24/the-billion-dollar-html-
tag/
3. J. Rosenberg and H. Schulzrinne, “An Extension to the Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP) for Symmetric Response Routing,” IETFRFC 3581, Aug. 2003
4. www.ietdl.org
5. Pack, S.: „Relay-based network mobility support in proxy mobile IPv6 networks‟. Proc.
IEEE CCNC 2008, January 2008
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