IPv6 -- What does it mean and how will organizations cope with this Next Evolution of TCP/IP?

The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force -- the Internet standards-setting body) understands and anticipates these technology trends and has already published new RFCs for TCP/IP implementations that some experts say will meet not only today’s requirements, but will also meet the increased demands of 21st century TCP/IP networking solutions.

FTP Software has been an active member of IETF for over ten years. Our participation provides assurance that enhanced technology continually emerges to meet our customers’ future business needs. It is important that both we and our customers remain at the leading edge with new TCP/IP protocol technologies such as RSVP, RTP, Multicast, IPSEC, Dynamic DNS, Mobile IP, and IPv6.

The new IPv6 technology will be an integral component of future-generation networking because it’s clear that today’s IPv4 address scheme will not meet tomorrow’s addressing demands and end-user needs. In fact, industry experts predict that IPv4 addresses will run out within the next 3-7 years, with escalating address shortages and associated headaches for network managers. In fact, many large European companies have already encountered addressing issues where they have not been allocated even class B addresses, but instead have to aggregate many class C addresses for their 10,000+ internal hosts.

What will IPv6 do if you already have an address and an established network? Well, at a minimum, it will enhance and improve network performance and prepare you for new intranetworking and internetworking opportunities.

However, since every new individual or device that utilizes the Internet, enterprise network, or private intranet requires an IP address, addressing demand will continue to expand with additional home users, government users, corporate users, notebook computers, personal data assistants (PDAs), cellular phones, interactive cable boxes, automobiles, and even intelligent household devices such as smart TVs and toasters. Someday, in theory, everyone could be using a "Universal Communicator" with a wireless transmitter requiring an IP address. This controller will become an integral part of accessing and managing their "personal" appliance and information network.

Expanding the address length from 32-bit to 128-bit will quadruple the available addressing space and allow for scalability to billions of nodes. This address expansion will be essential to meet the increasing growth of previously mentioned enterprise networks, private intranets, the Internet, PDAs, cellular devices, cable TVs, and intelligent households of the future.

The key to this exponential node expansion is not merely increased bits, but also improved scalability through a hierarchical address scheme which allows network segments to be aggregated to a single area. This is analogous to directory structures in your Windows and DOS environments today, wherein aggregated file groupings (\Windows\System\..) are maintained and organized within a single directory (\Windows).

The IPv6 protocol addressing structure provides flexibility for easy migration of not only IPv4 networks, but also includes support for other protocol suites such as Novell’s IPX and OSI’s NSAP. In addition, the address header reserves space for future connectivity needs.

The addressing packet header will be optimized to allow for intelligent and cost-effective traffic flow to ensure low-cost bandwidth.

Easy creation and evolution of networks will be possible by allowing network devices to find and claim network addresses in a plug-and-play mode. Some industry professionals equate this ease-of-use and plug-and-play functionality to AppleTalk and IPX, with its automatic assignment of an address to each network computer or network device without manual intervention by the administrator. IP address portability will be possible (with some limitations) by allowing organizations to switch service providers automatically and transparently throughout their network once certain changes have been implemented within the network architecture.

Flow labeling allows for special handling of packets through identification of packets belonging to specific traffic flows. This is especially important to achieve "Quality of Service" requirements for collaboration applications (RSVP, Multicast, Video Conferencing, and others). For example, by labeling packets in traffic patterns, real-time audio and video packets can request special handling to ensure timely and uninterrupted delivery. Also, IPv6 will reduce the need for broadcasting by utilizing unicast, anycast, and multicast methods.

An "Authentication Header" option will provide IPv6 datagrams with authentication and integrity; and will protect networks from source-routing security risks and host-masquerading attacks.

Both information integrity and confidentiality will be provided with the IPv6 "Encapsulating Security Header." The confidentiality feature is the key difference from the "Authentication" option above.

Whenever you switch, integrate, or implement new technology, there are always issues. To minimize problems, IPv6 hardware and software will be backward-compatible and recognize IPv4 packets. However, IPv4 won’t be forward-compatible, since today’s network software and hardware must be upgraded to recognize the IPv6 packet format and to support the next generation protocols (RSVP, IPSEC, Mobile IP, and others).

The IPv4 forward-compatibility problem can create difficulties for organizations implementing the new IPv6 protocol with their existing network IP architecture. In the short term, this problem can be solved through the process of tunneling or encapsulating IPv6 packets through an IP Gateway so that they appear as IPv4 packets. The gateway solution will be available as either as a hardware router or a software router solution. In the long term, network software and hardware infrastructures will need to add support for the new IPv6 Internet protocol.

To ensure the acceptance of this new protocol, IPv6 was designed to facilitate network migration and contains previously-mentioned features that will simplify the overall migration from IPv4 to IPv6.

Now that you have learned a little about IPv6, you may be wondering when this new protocol will be in place ... and what do I need to do now to be ready for the change. The transition will not take place overnight. Rather, today’s networks will migrate to this new protocol over the next 2-5 years. In fact, over the next year, only a few networks will actually implement IPv6 into full production environments -- with some exceptions for research institutions, large corporations, and government agencies. Organizations will begin testing this new technology to determine how it will affect their network infrastructure and to understand its benefits. Many organizations will run IPv4 and IPv6 networks side-by-side so they can test security, real-time flow control, and auto-configuration. At the same time, the migration will begin by utilizing IP Gateways so that IPv4 networks will communicate with and recognize IPv6 packets. This migration will increase as newer network software and hardware technologies that support IPv6 are integrated into existing network infrastructures. Some experts predict that the adoption rate of IPv6 will be faster in Europe due to there current addressing issues.

FTP Software is leading the industry by supplying our customers with IPv6 now, so our customers’ desktops are enabled today for current and future computing needs. By providing our customers with the opportunity to experiment and learn about the technology in its infancy, rather than in the high-growth phase of industry-wide adoption, we can help them stay ahead of their competition. The first implementation of IPv6 is expected to be available from FTP Software in the second half of 1996, well ahead of our competition.