Analysis of Transition to IPV6 - Essay Example

Transition to IPV6 Background According to Beijnum (2006, p. 117), an IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a binary number assigned to devices such as printers and computers, which are involved in a computer networking utilizing the internet protocol in the communication process. Its main purposes are location addressing and host identification. The space allocation of addresses is managed by the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). IANA manages the process globally by assigning five RIRs (regional internet registries) that handle the role of allotting the IP addresses to service providers. Therefore, the IANA regulates the use of IP address spaces globally. Consequently, the RIRs are entities that manage the registration of IP addresses in a given region (Savolainen, Korhonen & Soininen 2013, p.57). Currently there are two versions of the IPs that are in utilization globally namely the IPv4 and IPv6. The two protocols differ in various ways. The IPv4 version, incorporates a 32 bits version that varies to the IPv6’s which limits the address space to 232 equivalent to 4 294 967 296 distinctive addresses. The version also reserves some space for special addresses including the multicast and private addresses (Beijnum 2006, p. 117). The IPv6 has a size of 128 bits (16 octets) hence sufficient to incorporate huge blocks of address space as it provides probable unique addresses of up to a maximum of 2128 equivalent to 3.403 ×1038 unique addresses. Therefore, IPv6 provides a larger address space to host much more blocks in comparison to IPv4 version (Savolainen, Korhonen & Soininen 2013, p.57). In the contemporary world, internet has become an essential part of an individual’s life. Therefore, improving the existing network is crucial to ensure higher performance and reliability in the current generation. Generally, the internet utilizes IP protocol technology known as the IPv4. Even though the IPv4 has been an essential element of modern technology, it is inadequate to hold a much higher range of addresses. It initially allowed over 4 billion addresses from different host devices, and the number of addresses being added to the protocol is now finite and telecommunication companies have identified the next generation solution. The answer to network traffic is IPv6, which provides more addresses. Consequently, the transition to IPv6 is quite challenging, as the two are not compatible and hence a number of transition strategies have been addressed to ensure users are transforming to IPv6. Due to this, the transition is becoming feasible as the strategies incorporate transitioning techniques that ensure a gradual introduction (6NET 2008 p.43). There are various transition mechanisms relevant in the migration from IPv4 to IPv6.Dual stacking is a mechanism whereby devices including computers operate with both the protocols and therefore is characterized by two versions. The dynamic 6 to 4 tunneling is another mechanism, which allows connection of various localities of IP-v6 across an IPv4 interface. The mechanism allows a distinct IPv6 prefix to retrieve address information in each locality without signaling or getting the information from ISPs. Manual 6 to 4 tunneling (IPv6-over-Ipv4) involves the tunneling of IPv6 packets over an IPv4 network (Hagen 2011, p.45). This mechanism requires a configuration of routers to incorporate dual stacks as the IPv6 packets are enclosed in IPv4 packets. Another mechanism utilized in the gradual transition includes the Teredo tunneling whereby the process uses the hosts to tunnel theIPv6 packets via an IPv4 network device. The Nat Proxying Translation (NAT-PT) utilizes a translation device that renders addresses between an IPv4 and IPv6 network. Virtual links can be utilized to bond IPv6 localities in a site that uses IPvb4 network through the Intra-Site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP) tunneling (Hagen 2011, p.45). This mechanism requires boundary routers to constitute dual stacks. These are the most common transitioning mechanism, which have been formulated and designed to ensure an effective method in the transition from the IPv4 network to the more sophisticated IPv6. With the various mechanisms, entities are hopeful that a seamless and effective transition to a more sophisticated Internet protocol will be achieved. IP Exhaustion IPv4 exhaustion is the reduction of unallocated addresses in the IPv4 version pool. The IANA manages the allocation of the addresses to end users. There are numerous studies by researchers that intend to find out how fast the address space is utilized and the remaining IPv4 addresses are used up. Currently, there has been a need for more addresses due to an increase of and significant growth of internet users and application hosts. Therefore, number of hosts is thus increasing by the day (Hagen 2011, p.45). This implies that there is need for more addresses in the internet world. According to telecommunication companies, the current 4294967296 addresses are insufficient and thus cannot satisfy future needs of applications and internet hosts. According to Geoff Huston, an expert at the Advanced Internet Architectures center predicted that the IPv4 address space would be depleted by September 2011. However, the accuracy of the predicted date is imprecise, but recent research argues that the depletion rate could not be further from the truth. This has prompted many organizations to reserve addresses to ensure that they have enough addresses before the space is finally exhausted. Therefore, this implies that many addresses are dispensed every day (Hagen 2011, p.45). The figure below indicates the status of IPv4 addresses. According to the above table, there are 35.078/8 number of addresses which are reserved for utilization in a number of scenarios. Of this number 1 6/8 of the reserved block are for utilization in multicast cases, 1 6/8 address blocks are for unstipulated future application, a/8 for loopback, a/8 blocks are reserved for local identification and lastly a/6 blocks are for public utilization. Consequently, the remaining blocks equivalent of 220.922 /8 are for utilization by the public. On 31 January 2011, a top-level depletion was experienced as many parts of the globe exhausted their RIR allocation of IPv4 address pools. Consequently, the RIR APNIC’s registry exhausted its bloke on 25 April 2011 as the other RIRs were predicted to finally exhaust their address blocks in the next few years (6NET 2008 p.59). Even though the depletion of the IPv4 addresses was as a result of its design and capacity, a number of other factors contribute to the exhaustion. Currently, mobile devices have been built with the capacity to communicate over the internet, hence are possible internet hosts, and thus require IPv4 and IPv6 addressing. Throughout the past decades, internet access has experienced a rapid growth thus the increment in address consumption. Therefore, the address intake process has gained an alarming pace in recent years. Moreover, in the 1980s many entities were allocated more addresses than they required as universities and big companies were assigned large blocks of addresses including level A blocks of address equivalent to about 16 million (IPv4) addresses. Therefore, apart from the lack of additional spaces due to IPv4design and structure, there are a additional factors that led to the depletion of the address spaces (6NET 2008 p.59). Current state of IPv6 deployment IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) was designed in the mid 1990s to cope with the current problem of the IPv4 address depletion which has been in use since 1982. The new version is in its diverse stages of the employment over the internet. The transition process is however coupled by challenges, as it requires changes over the internet’s infrastructure to incorporate the new version. This is because the address block size, hierarchy and structure of addresses differs by a significant margin to the IPv4. Therefore, a change in network and application design is also needed. According to research, the process of IPv6 deployment will take significant time and planning due to the size of the internet and hence a feasible process will involve a coexistence of both the versions (Rooney 2010, p. 156). For an effective and sustainable network, a seamless migration is vital. By 2008, the IPv6 had still a minor fraction of the traffic and utilized addresses in the widely available internet. Therefore, the IPv4 was still dominant as it had a huge fraction of the total assigned addresses. According to a research conducted by Google, IPv6 penetration in any country was less than one percent as the countries, which were leading were Russia, France, Ukraine, Norway and U.S.A, recording a percentages of 0.76%, 0.65%, 0.64%, 0.49% and 0.45% respectively. However, by March 2014, most domains (5.7 million) contained IPv6 addresses in their respective zones. Consequently, 17.4 % of all global networks in the BGP had the current version protocol support while out of the 483 TLDs (top-level domains) of the web supported IPv6 (Rooney 2010, p. 156). As operating systems are vital in the transition from IPv4, in ensuring an effective migration, major operating systems were configured to support the Internet Protocol Version 6 by 2011. These operating systems include Microsoft Windows, Marc OS X, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. Moreover, internet applications like BitTorrent utilize IPv6 to ensure that initial NAT problems that were common for the Internent Protocol version 4 are alleviated. A vital field that is crucial in the deployment for Internet Protocol is the telephone (mobile) systems that incorporate devices like mobile services (Beijnum 2006, p. 117). The current trend of mobile technologies such as the 4G that utilizes VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) mandates the application of IPv6 in the mobile devices. Hence the action by many cellular operators of utilizing the Internet protocol in their networks. In 2009, the Verizon, a cellular company liberated technical specifications for IPv6 that were to be utilized by it mobile devices. Moreover, numerous internet providers including content and ISPs, are also adopting and implementing IPv6 in their various products (Beijnum 2006, p. 117). Consequently, governments have adopted the Internet protocol in various agencies and departments. Throughout the past decade, U.S transformed the network backbone of variou8s federal departments from the IPv4 to IPv6. On the other hand, the government of China formulated a five-year plan that mandated the deployment of IPv6. The plan was termed as the China Next Generation Internet (Rooney 2010, p.156). Interested parties that are affected by the IPv4 Exhaustion Due to the exhaustion of the IPv4, many people and organizations are likely to be affected, because the internet is characterized by various entities and multi stockholders including ICP, end users, ISP, RIRs and Governments among others. Each of the organizations and individuals are affected in various ways and thus react in a dissimilar manner. Therefore, the exhaustion impact all web users as the depletion of IP addresses implies that the web is near full aptitude and thus connectivity between new devices will prove impossible. Moreover, the market for addresses is in creation as organizations and individuals alike will require available resources. IANA and its subsequent RIRs will be directly affected by the exhaustion, due to the lack of additional spaces to allocate to entities. IANA was mandated to allocate the IPv4 spaces to various entities and individuals through RIRs. With the lack of addresses to distribute, this means that both IANA and RIR’s work is done (Goralski 2009, p. 121). IANA has taken a number of steps to deal with the exhaustion as policies have been formulated. After the central pool is depleted, various policies will be utilized by the entity to distribute IPv4 resources to the RIRs. Once the central pool is exhausted, IANA will develop a Recovered IPv4 Pool, which will contain fragments that the IANA inventory had left in the past decades. This pool will also incorporate spaces, which were returned by organization. The Recovered pool will be declared active once any of the RIRs have less than a/9 of the allocated addresses (Goralski 2009, p. 121). The IPv4 exhaustion will definitely affect users who require addresses. If an individual requires huge chunks of address spaces, the allocation would be difficult due to address depletion. However, if a user requires one space, he/she may not see any changes as he might be allocated the address as the RIRs are still assigning the spaces. Therefore, in order to get a good amount of IP addresses, users should start prioritizing IPv6 over the version 4 (Goralski 2009, p. 121). Network operators rely on space allocation in order to perform their daily activities. Even though it will take some time before RIRs run out of IPv4 pools, due to the small space sizes from the final /8 block, many operators currently face problems in getting the spaces. This is because the RIRs are allocating a small amount of IPv4 spaces to entities in comparison to how they used to apportion a few years ago. Networks are now eligible to a very small proportion of the IPv4 addresses. As the IPv4 pool diminishes, ISPs will not be able to provide IPv4 addresses to customers (Li, Jinmei, & Shima 2009, p. 7). Many operators are currently implementing IPv4 Network Address Translation (NAT) in their current platforms in order to dispense private addresses to their clients. This approach has proven vital as it also helps customers to utilize their IPv4 network over an IPv6 network. Numerous ISPs are subdividing their network to ease conflict problems arising from allocation of IPv4 private addresses and private IPs on current customer network. Therefore, networks should begin the deployment process of IPv6 in order to ease the constraints arising from the shortage of IPv4 spaces. Therefore, the employment of IPv6 seems to be the only feasible and long-term solution to the shortage problem (Goralski 2009, p. 121). The emergence of mobile technology and the Internet In the past few years, the internet has been flocking with new devices and technology, specifically the mobile devices. This has led to the exhaustion of the IPv4 address pool as the mobile devices have a networked digital communication capability and thus utilize IP addressing. Even though the internet has been affected by the introduction of Mobile IP, IPv4 has been significantly distressed as the IANA’s IPv4 address pool is almost in its last phase of depletion. However, the emergence of IPv6 has assisted ease the exhaustion problem, as many mobile devices with 4G connectivity are utilizing the version 6 Internet Protocol. Therefore, the internet has survived in the past few years due to the deployment of IPv6 (Li, Jinmei, & Shima 2009, p. 7). Conclusion From the research on both the IPv4 and its successor, IPv6, it is evident that the exhaustion of Internet Protocol version 4 has a significant impact on numerous entities. With the shortage of the IPv4 address spaces, the deployment of version 6 provides a much feasible solution to the end users, ISPs, federal agencies, universities, companies among others. Even though, the predicted depletion date was in 2011, many strategies to ensure the allocation of the version 4 addresses have postponed the exhaustion date. However, this does not imply that the version will be operating within the next decade, as it is in its last phases as the last RIRs freely allocated addresses are running out. This has led to the deployment of IPv6 over the internet. Hence all affected organizations, ISPs and firms should adopt the version 6 network while upgrading their internet capabilities for compatibility measures. Even though problems arising from the migration are inevitable due to the lack of direct communication between the two versions, various mechanisms have been developed to ensure a seamless deployment of IPv6. Bibliography 6NET. (2008). IPv6 deployment guide. 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