V6OPS G. Fioccola
Internet-Draft P. Volpato
Intended status: Informational Huawei Technologies
Expires: December 3, 2021 N. Elkins
Inside Products
J. Palet Martinez
The IPv6 Company
G. Mishra
Verizon Inc.
C. Xie
China Telecom
June 1, 2021
IPv6 Deployment Status
draft-ietf-v6ops-ipv6-deployment-01
Abstract
Looking globally, IPv6 is growing faster than IPv4. This means that
the networking industry is selecting IPv6 for the future. This
document provides an overview of IPv6 transition deployment status
and a view on how the transition to IPv6 is progressing among network
operators and enterprises that are introducing IPv6 or have already
adopted an IPv6-only solution. It also aims to analyze the
transition challenges and therefore encourage actions and more
investigations on some areas that are still under discussion. The
overall IPv6 incentives are also examined.
Status of This Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on December 3, 2021.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The global IPv6 picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. IPv4 Address Exhaustion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. IPv6 users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. IPv6 allocations and networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4. IPv6 web content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. A study on IPv6 deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1. Survey among Network Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2. Survey among Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.1. Government, campuses and universities . . . . . . . . 10
3.3. Application transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.4. Observations on Content and Cloud Service Providers . . . 11
3.5. Observations on Industrial Internet . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4. IPv6 overlay service design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1. IPv6 introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2. IPv6-only service delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. IPv6 underlay network deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6. IPv6 incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7. Call for action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.1. Transition choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.1.1. Service providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.1.2. Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7.1.3. Cloud and Data Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.1.4. CPEs and user devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.1.5. Industrial Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7.1.6. Government and Regulators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7.2. Network Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7.3. Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7.3.1. IPv6 latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7.3.2. IPv6 packet loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7.3.3. Router's performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
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7.3.4. Customer Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7.4. IPv6 security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.4.1. Protocols security issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
7.4.2. Transition technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7.4.3. IPv6 Extension Headers and Fragmentation . . . . . . 26
7.4.4. Oversized IPv6 packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
11. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Appendix A. Summary of Questionnaire and Replies for network
operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Appendix B. Summary of Questionnaire and Replies for enterprises 36
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1. Introduction
This document provides a survey of the status of IPv6 deployment and
highlights the difficulties in the transition. This process helps to
understand what is missing and how to improve the current IPv6
deployment strategies of network operators, enterprises, content and
cloud service providers. The scope is to give an updated view of the
practices and plans already described in [RFC6036], to encourage
actions and more investigations on some areas that are still under
discussion and to present the main incentives for the IPv6 adoption.
On the one hand [RFC6180] discusses the IPv6 deployment models and
transition tools, [RFC6036] describes the Service Provider Scenarios
for IPv6 Deployment, [RFC7381] introduces the guidelines of the IPv6
deployment for Enterprise and [RFC6883] provides guidance and
suggestions for Internet Content Providers and Application Service
Providers. This document focuses on the end-to-end services and in
particular on the device - network - content communication chain.
It is possible to mention the IAB Statement on IPv6 [IAB] stating
that "the IAB expects that the IETF will stop requiring IPv4
compatibility in new or extended protocols". At the same time, SDOs
(Standard Developing Organizations), such as ETSI, are working more
on IPv6, as an example [ETSI-IP6-WhitePaper], reports the IPv6 Best
Practices, Benefits, Transition Challenges and the Way Forward.
The initial section goes through the global picture of IPv6 to show
how IPv6 is growing faster than IPv4 worldwide. This testifies that
most of the industry players have decided to invest and deploy IPv6
in large-scale.
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Then a study of IPv6 deployments is presented, including the survey
among network operators and enterprises. The section on IPv6 overlay
service design describes the IPv6 transition approaches for Mobile
BroadBand (MBB), Fixed BroadBand (FBB) and Enterprise services. In
particular Dual-Stack is the most deployed solution for IPv6
introduction, while 464XLAT and Dual-Stack Lite (DS-Lite) seem the
most suitable for IPv6-only service delivery. The section on IPv6
underlay network deployment focuses on the common approach for the
transport network.
Finally, The IPv6 incentives are presented and the general IPv6
challenges are also reported in particular in relation to Transition
choices, Operations, Performance and Security issues. These
considerations aim to start a call for action on the areas of
improvement, that are often mentioned as reason for not deploying
IP6.
2. The global IPv6 picture
The utilization of IPv6 has been monitored by many agencies and
institutions worldwide. Different analytics have been made
available, ranging from the number of IPv6 users, its relative
utilization over the Internet, to the number of carriers able to
route IPv6 network prefixes. [ETSI-IP6-WhitePaper] provided several
of those analytics. The scope of this section then is to summarize
the status of the IPv6 adoption, so to get an indication of the
relevance of IPv6 today. For the analytics listed here, the trend
over the past five years is given, expressed as the Compound Annual
Growth Rate (CAGR). In general, this shows how IPv6 has grown in the
past few years, and that is growing faster than IPv4.
2.1. IPv4 Address Exhaustion
According to [CAIR] there will be 29.3 billion networked devices by
2023, up from 18.4 billion in 2018. This poses the question on
whether the IPv4 address space can sustain such a number of
allocations and, consequently, if this is affecting the process of
its exhaustion. The answer is not straightforward as many aspects
have to be considered.
On the one hand, the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) are
reporting scarcity of available and still reserved addresses.
Table 3 of [POTAROO1] shows that the available pool of the five RIRs
counts a little more than 6 million IPv4 address, while the reserved
pool includes another 12 million, for a total of "usable" addresses
equal to 18.3 million. The same reference, in table 1, shows that
the total IPv4 allocated pool equals 3.684 billion addresses. The
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ratio between the "usable" addresses and the total allocated brings
to 0.005% of remaining space.
On the other, [POTAROO1] again highlights the role of both NAT and
the address transfer to counter the IPv4 exhaustion. NAT systems
well fit in the current client/server model used by most of the
available Internet applications, with this phenomenon amplified by
the general shift to cloud. Anyway, it should be noted that, in some
cases, private address space cannot provide adequate address and the
reuse of addresses makes the network even more complex. The transfer
of IPv4 addresses also contributes to mitigate the need of addresses.
As an example, [IGP-GT] and [NRO] show the amount of transfers to
recipient organizations in the different regions. Cloud Service
Providers (CSPs) appear to be the most active in buying available
addresses to satisfy their need of providing IPv4 connectivity to
their tenants. But, since each address blocks of Internet is
licensed by a specific resource-holder and stored for the
verification of the authenticity, frequent address transfer may
affect the global routing.
2.2. IPv6 users
[ETSI-IP6-WhitePaper] provided the main statistics about the
utilization of IPv6 worldwide and references the organizations that
make their measurement publicly available through their web sites.
To give a rough estimation of the relative growth of IPv6, the next
table shows the total number of estimated IPv6-capable users at
December 2020 as measured by [POTAROO2], [APNIC1].
+--------+-------+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| | Dec | Dec | Dec | Dec | Dec | CAGR |
| | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | |
+--------+-------+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| World | 300.85| 473.14| 543.04 | 990.19 |1,201.09| 41% |
+--------+-------+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
Figure 1: IPv6-capable users worldwide (in millions)
2.3. IPv6 allocations and networks
RIRs are responsible for allocating IPv6 address blocks to Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) or LIRs (Local Internet Registries) and
assigning to direct end users (such as enterprises or other
organizations). An ISP/LIR will use the allocated block to assign
addresses to their end users. For example, a mobile carrier will
assign one or several /64 prefixes to the User Equipment (UE).
Several analytics are available from the RIRs. The next table shows
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the amount of individual allocations, per RIR, in the time period
2016-2020 [APNIC2].
+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------+------+
| Registry| Dec | Dec | Dec | Dec | Dec |Cumulated| CAGR |
| | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | | |
+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------+------+
| AFRINIC | 116 | 112 | 110 | 115 | 109 | 562 | 48% |
| APNIC | 1,681 | 1,369 | 1,474 | 1,484 | 1,498 | 7,506 | 45% |
| ARIN | 646 | 684 | 659 | 605 | 644 | 3,238 | 50% |
| LACNIC | 1,009 | 1,549 | 1,448 | 1,614 | 1,801 | 7,421 | 65% |
| RIPE NCC| 2,141 | 2,051 | 2,620 | 3,104 | 1,403 | 11,319 | 52% |
| | | | | | | | |
| Total | 5,593 | 5,765 | 6,311 | 6,922 | 5,455 | 30,046 | 52% |
+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------+------+
Figure 2: IPv6 allocations worldwide
Note that the decline in 2020 of IPv6 allocations from the RIPE NCC
could be explained with the COVID-19 measures that affect many
European countries. Anyway countries all over the world have been
similarly affected, but the decline in IPv6 allocation activity in
2020 is only seen in the data from the RIPE NCC. It may be also due
to the big grow in the previous years. If most of the LIRs and
enterprises already got IPv6 addresses in the few years, at some
point, in every RIR the requests will decline.
[APNIC2] also compares the number of allocations for both address
families, and the result is in favor of IPv6. The average yearly
growth is 52% for IPv6 in the period 2016-2020 versus 49% for IPv4, a
sign that IPv6 is growing bigger than IPv4. This is described in the
next table.
+--------+------+------+--------+--------+-------+-----------+------+
| Address| Dec | Dec | Dec | Dec | Dec | Cumulated | CAGR |
| family | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | | |
+--------+------+------+--------+--------+-------+-----------+------+
| IPv6 | 5,593| 5,765| 6,311 | 6,922 | 5,455 | 30,046 | 52% |
| | | | | | | | |
| IPv4 |10,515| 9,437| 10,192 | 14,019 | 7,437 | 51,600 | 49% |
| | | | | | | | |
+--------+------+------+--------+--------+-------+-----------+------+
Figure 3: Allocations per address family
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The next table is based on [APNIC3], [APNIC4] and shows the
percentage of ASes supporting IPv6 compared to the total ASes
worldwide. The number of IPv6-capable ASes increases from 22.6% in
January 2017 to 30.4% in January 2021. This equals to 14% CAGR for
IPv6 enabled networks. This also shows that the number of networks
supporting IPv6 is growing faster than the ones supporting IPv4,
since the total (IPv6 and IPv4) networks grow at 6% CAGR.
+------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+
| Advertised | Jan | Jan | Jan | Jan | Jan | CAGR |
| ASN | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
+------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+
|IPv6-capable| 12,700| 14,500| 16,470| 18,600| 21,400| 14% |
| | | | | | | |
| Total ASN | 56,100| 59,700| 63,100| 66,800| 70,400| 6% |
| | | | | | | |
| Ratio | 22.6% | 24.3% | 26.1% | 27.8% | 30.4% | |
+------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+
Figure 4: Percentage of IPv6-capable ASes
2.4. IPv6 web content
[W3Tech] keeps track of the use of several technical components of
websites. The utilization of IPv6 for websites is shown in the next
table.
+------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+
| Wolrdwide | Jan | Jan | Jan | Jan | Jan | CAGR |
| Websites | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
+------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+
|% of IPv6 | 9.6% | 11.4% | 13.3% | 15.0% | 17.5% | 16% |
+------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+
Figure 5: Usage of IPv6 in websites
Looking at the growth rate, that may appear not particularly high.
It has to be noted, though, that not all websites are equal. The
largest content providers, which already support IPv6, generate a lot
more IPv6-based content than small websites. [Csc6lab] measured at
the beginning of January 2021 that out of the world top 500 sites
ranked by [Alx], 196 are IPv6-enabled. If we consider that the big
content providers (such as Google, Facebook, Netflix) generate more
than 50% of the total mobile traffic [SNDVN], and in some cases even
more up to 65% ([ISOC1] [HxBld]), the percentage of content
accessible over IPv6 should be quite relevant.
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Related to that, a question that arises is whether the content stored
by content providers would be all accessible on IPv6 in the
hypothetical case of a sudden IPv4 switch-off. Even if this is pure
speculation, it is likely the case. This would immediately raise the
quantity of content potentially accessible via IPv6.
3. A study on IPv6 deployments
3.1. Survey among Network Operators
Apart from a few public references who provide the status of IPv6 in
a specific network (e.g. [RlncJ]), most of available data come from
organizations that constantly track the usage of IPv6 aggregating
data from several sources. As an example, the Internet Society
constantly monitors the volume of IPv6 traffic for the networks that
joined the WorldIPv6Launch initiative [WIPv6L]. The measurement
aggregates statistics from organizations such as [Akm-stats] that
provides data down to the single network level measuring the number
of hits to their content delivery platform. The analytics show a
degree of adoption that varies quite greatly according to the
numerous reasons that are discussed throughout this paper (related to
market demand, local regulation, political actions).
To understand the details about the plans and the technical
preferences towards IPv6, a survey was submitted to a group of
service providers in Europe (see Appendix A for the complete poll).
Without pretending to be exhaustive, the poll captured some insights
that could be relevant to the discussion. The poll reveals that the
majority of the operators interviewed has plans concerning IPv6
(79%). Of them, 60% already has ongoing activities, while 33% is
expected to start activities in a 12-months time-frame. The
transition to IPv6 involves all business segments: mobile (63%),
fixed (63%), and enterprise (50%).
The reasons to move to IPv6 vary. The majority of the operators that
have a plan for IPv6 perceive issues related to IPv4 depletion and
prefer to avoid the use of private addressing schemes (48%) to save
the NAT costs. Global IPv4 address depletion and the run out of
private address space recommended in [RFC1918] are reported as the
important drivers for IPv6 deployment. In some cases, the adoption
of IPv6 is driven by innovation strategy (as the enabler of new
services, 13%) or is introduced because of 5G/IoT, which play the
role of business incentive to IPv6 (20%). In a few cases,
respondents highlight the availability of National Regulatory
policies requiring to enable IPv6 together with the launch of 5G
(13%). Enterprise customers demand is also a reason to introduce
IPv6 (13%).
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From a technical preference standpoint, Dual-Stack is the most
adopted solution, both in wireline (59%) and in cellular networks
(39%). In wireline, the second most adopted mechanism is DS-Lite
(19%), while in cellular networks the second preference goes to
464XLAT (21%).
In the majority of the cases, the interviewed operators do not see
any need to do the transition of their network as a whole. They
consider to touch or to replace only what it is needed. CPE (47%),
BNG (20%), CGN devices (33%), mobile core (27%) are the components
that may be affected by transition or replacement. It is interesting
to see that most of the network operators have no big plans to do
transition for the transport network (metro and backbone) soon, since
they do not see business reasons. It seems that there is no pressure
to do transition to native IPv6-only forwarding in the short term,
anyway the future benefit of IPv6 may justify in the long term a
transition to native IPv6-only.
More details about the answers received can be found in the
Appendix A.
3.2. Survey among Enterprises
As described in [RFC7381], enterprises face different challenges than
operators. Some publicly available statistics also show that the
deployment of IPv6 lags behind other sectors.
[NST_1] provides estimations on deployment status of IPv6 for more
than 1000 second level domains such as example.com, example.net or
example.org belonging to organizations in the United States. The
measurement encompasses many industries, including
telecommunications. So, the term "enterprises" is a bit loose to
this extent. In any case, it provides a first indication of IPv6
adoption in several US industry sectors. The analysis tries to infer
whether IPv6 is supported by looking from "outside" a company's
network. It takes into consideration the support of IPv6 to external
services such as Domain Name System (DNS), mail and website.
Overall, for around 65% of the considered domains there is an active
DNS Name Server (NS) record, but less than 20% have IPv6 support for
their websites and less than 10% have IPv6-based mail services, as of
January 2021.
[BGR_1] have similar data for China. The measurement considers 241
second or third level domains such as example.com, example.cn or
example.com.cn. 33% have IPv6 support for DNS, 2% are operationally
ready to support mail services, 98% have IPv6-based websites.
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A poll submitted to a group of large enterprises in North America
(see Appendix B) show that the operational issues are likely to be
more critical than for operators.
Looking at current implementations, almost one third has dual-stacked
networks, while 20% declares that portions of their networks are
IPv6-only. 35% of the enterprises are stuck at the training phase.
In no cases the network is fully IPv6-based.
Speaking of training, the most critical needs are in the field of
IPv6 security and IPv6 troubleshooting (both highlighted by the two
thirds of respondents), followed by IPv6 fundamentals (57.41%).
Coming to implementation, the three areas of concern are IPv6
security (31.48%), training (27.78%), application conversion
(25.93%). Interestingly, 33.33% of respondents think that all three
areas are all simultaneously of concern.
The full poll is reported in Appendix B.
3.2.1. Government, campuses and universities
This section focuses specifically on governments and academia, due to
the relevance of both domains in the process of IPv6 adoption. The
already mentioned organizations that estimates the IPv6 status
provide a deep focus on IPv6 in the network domains associated with
governmental and education-related agencies.
As far as the US Governmental and Federal Agencies are concerned, the
statistics [NST_2] show higher IPv6 adoption than the overall
enterprise sector discussed in the previous section. This is lilely
to be dependent on the support provided by [US-CIO]. Looking at the
1250 measured second level domains (e.g. example.gov or example.fed
domains) as of January 2021, more than 80% provide IPv6 support for
DNS, around 40% have IPv6-enabled websites while only 15% have mail
services over IPv6. For China [BGR_2], 54 third level domains such
as example.gov.cn domains are analyzed. DNS is operational in 42% of
the cases, mail services over IPv6 are not yet enabled while 98% of
the government agencies have an IPv6 website enabled.
For higher education, [NST_3] measures the data coming from 346
second level domains such as example.edu, while [BGR_3] looks at 71
domains such as example.edu.cn. Starting with the former, slightly
less than 50% .edu domains have IPv6 support for DNS, around 20% for
mail services and slightly more than 15% have an IPv6 website. In
the case of China, 50% have DNS operational, 0% IPv6 support for mail
services and 99% have an IPv6-enabled website.
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3.3. Application transition
It is worth mentioning Happy Eyeballs [RFC6555] and Happy Eyeballs 2
[RFC8305] as a major aspect of application transition and porting to
IPv6. All host and network router OS's by default prefer IPv6 over
IPv4.
3.4. Observations on Content and Cloud Service Providers
The number of addresses required to connect all of the virtual and
physical elements in a Data Center and the necessity to overcome the
limitation posed by [RFC1918] has been the driver to adopt IPv6 in
several Content and Cloud Service Provider (CSP) networks.
Several public references, as reported in Section 7.1.3, discuss how
most of the major players find themselves at different stages in the
transition to IPv6-only in their DC infrastructure. In some cases,
the transition already happened and the DC infrastructure of these
hyperscalers is completely based on IPv6. This can be considered a
good sign because the end-to-end connectivity between a client (e.g.
an application on a smartphone) and a server (a Virtual Machine in a
DC) may be based on IPv6.
3.5. Observations on Industrial Internet
There are potential advantages for implementing IPv6 for IIoT
(Industrial Internet of Things) applications, in particular the large
IPv6 address space, the automatic IPv6 configuration and resource
discovery.
However, there are still many obstacles that prevent its pervasive
use. The key problems identified are the incomplete or immature tool
support, the dependency on manual configuration and the poor
knowledge of the IPv6 protocols among insiders. To advance and ease
the use of IPv6 for smart manufacturing systems and IIoT applications
in general, a generic approach to remove these pain points is
therefore highly desirable.
4. IPv6 overlay service design
This section reports the most deployed approaches for the IPv6
transition in MBB, FBB and enterprise.
The consolidated strategy, as also described in
[ETSI-IP6-WhitePaper], is based on two stages, namely: (1) IPv6
introduction, and (2) IPv6-only. The first stage aims at delivering
the service in a controlled manner, where the traffic volume of
IPv6-based services is minimal. When the service conditions change,
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e.g. when the traffic grows beyond a certain threshold, then the
move to the second stage may occur. In this latter case, the service
is delivered solely on IPv6, including the traffic originated from
IPv4-based nodes. For this reason, the IPv6-only stage is also
called IPv4aaS (IPv4 as a Service).
4.1. IPv6 introduction
In order to enable the deployment of an IPv6 service over an underlay
IPv4 architecture, there are two possible approaches:
o Enabling Dual-Stack at the Customer Premises Equipment (CPE)
o IPv6-in-IPv4 tunneling, e.g. with IPv6 Rapid Deployment (6rd).
So, from a technical perspective, the first stage is based on Dual-
Stack [RFC4213] or tunnel-based mechanisms such as Generic Routing
Encapsulation (GRE), 6rd and others.
Dual-Stack [RFC4213] is more robust, and easier to troubleshoot and
support. Based on information provided by operators with the answers
to the poll (see Appendix A), it can be stated that Dual-Stack is
currently the most widely deployed IPv6 solution, for MBB, FBB and
enterprises, accounting for about 50% of all IPv6 deployments, see
both Appendix A and the statistics reported in [ETSI-IP6-WhitePaper].
Therefore, for operators that are willing to introduce IPv6 the most
common approach is to apply the Dual-Stack transition solution.
With Dual-Stack, IPv6 can be introduced together with other network
upgrades and many parts of network management and IT systems can
still work in IPv4. This avoids major upgrade of such systems to
support IPv6, which is possibly the most difficult task in the IPv6
transition. In other words, the cost and effort on the network
management and IT system upgrade are moderate. The benefits are to
start to accommodate future services and save the NAT costs.
The CPE has both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses at the WAN side and uses an
IPv6 connection to the operator gateway, e.g. Broadband Network
Gateway (BNG) or Packet Gateway (PGW) / User Plane Function (UPF).
However, the hosts and content servers can still be IPv4 and/or IPv6.
For example, NAT64 can enable IPv6-only hosts to access IPv4 servers.
The backbone network underlay can also be IPv4 or IPv6.
Although the Dual-Stack IPv6 transition is a good solution to be
followed in the IPv6 introduction stage, it does have few
disadvantages in the long run, like the duplication of the network
resources and states, as well as other limitations for network
operation. It also means requiring more IPv4 addresses, so an
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increase in both Capital Expenses (CAPEX) and Operating Expenses
(OPEX). Even if private addresses are being used via Carrier-Grade
NAT (CGN), there is extra investment in the CGN devices.
For this reason, when IPv4 traffic is vanishingly small or when IPv6
usage increases to more than a given percentage, which highly depends
on each network (typically over 60%), it would be better to switch to
the IPv6-only stage with IPv4aaS. It is difficult to establish the
criterion for switching and in particular the limit of the IPv4
decrease or the IPv6 increase beyond which the switch to IPv6 is
desirable. There are several factors to consider, indeed the
switching costs might be high including loss of customers.
[WIPv6L] reports measurements of network operator participants in
World IPv6 Launch, in particular the IPv6 deployment is more than 50%
for 105 out of 318 (33%) and more that 75% for 38 out of 318 (12%).
So it could be possible to consider a threshold of IPv6 increase up
to 75% and it is something that is already a reality for a number of
networks.
4.2. IPv6-only service delivery
The second stage, named here IPv6-only (but including IPv4 support
via IPv4aaS), can be a complex decision that depends on several
factors, such as economic factors, policy and government regulation.
[I-D.ietf-v6ops-transition-comparison] discusses and compares the
technical merits of the most common transition solutions for
IPv6-only service delivery, 464XLAT [RFC6877], DS-lite [RFC6333],
Lightweight 4over6 (lw4o6) [RFC7596], MAP-E [RFC7597], and MAP-T
[RFC7599], but without providing an explicit recommendation. As the
poll highlights, the most widely deployed IPv6 transition solution
for MBB is 464XLAT and for FBB is DS-Lite.
Based on the survey among network operators in Appendix A it is
possible to analyze the IPv6 transition technologies that are already
deployed or that will be deployed. The different answers to the
questionnaire and in particular [ETSI-IP6-WhitePaper] reported
detailed statistics on that and it can be stated that, besides Dual-
Stack, the most widely deployed IPv6 transition solution for MBB is
464XLAT, and for FBB is DS-Lite, both of which are IPv6-only
solutions, also referred as IPv4 as a Service. IPv4aaS offers Dual-
Stack service to users and allows an operator to run IPv6-only in the
access network.
However, it needs to be observed, that more FBB and mixed MBB/FBB are
turning to 464XLAT, as 464XLAT seems to be the most valid solution
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for MBB and it is often preferred to the other transition mechanisms,
especially if we consider the case of mixed MBB/FBB.
Looking at the different feedback from network operators, in some
cases, even when using private addresses, such as private address
space as recommended in [RFC1918], the address pool is not large
enough, e.g. for large mobile operators or large Data Centers (DCs),
Dual-Stack is not enough, because it still requires IPv4 addresses to
be assigned. Also, Dual-Stack will likely lead to duplication of
several network operations both in IPv6 and IPv4 and this increases
the amount of state information in the network with a waste of
resources. For this reason, in some scenarios (e.g. MBB or DCs)
IPv6-only stage could be more efficient from the start since the IPv6
introduction phase with Dual-Stack may consume more resources (for
example CGN costs).
It is worth mentioning that the IPv6-only transition technologies
with IPv4aaS, such as 464XLAT, have a much lower need for IPv4 public
addresses, because they make a more efficient usage without
restricting the number of ports per subscriber and this reduces
troubleshooting costs as well. This may also be tied to the
permanent black-listing of IPv4 address blocks when used via CGN in
some services, such as Sony Play Station Network or OpenDNS, among
others, which implies a higher rotation of IPv4 prefixes in CGN,
until they get totally blocked. IPv6-only with IPv4aaS, in many
cases, could outweigh sooner than expected the advantages of Dual-
Stack or IPv6-in-IPv4 tunneling. It can also be facilitated by the
natural upgrade or replacement of CPEs because of newer technologies
(tripe-play, higher bandwidth WAN links, better WiFi technologies,
etc.) and, at the same time, the CAPEX and OPEX of other parts of the
network will be lowered (for example CGN and associated logs), indeed
the chance to reduce the usage of IPv4 addresses could also be turn
into revenues by means of IPv4 transfers.
So, in general, as already mentioned in the previous section, when
the Dual-Stack disadvantages outweigh the IPv6-only complexity, it
makes sense to do the transition to IPv6-only. Some network
operators already started this process, while others are still
waiting.
5. IPv6 underlay network deployment
IPv6-only alone can be misinterpreted. It can be referred to
different portions of the network, to the underlay network, to the
overlay (services) [I-D.palet-v6ops-ipv6-only].
As opposed to the IPv6-only service delivery (with IPv4aaS) discussed
in the previous sections, the IPv6-only network means that the whole
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network uses IPv6 as the network protocol for all traffic delivery,
but some operators may do IPv6-only at the access network only. It
is a case-by-case basis.
As a matter of fact, IPv4 reachability must be provided for a long
time to come over IPv6 for IPv6-only endpoints. Most operators are
leveraging CGN to extend the life of IPv4 instead of going with
IPv4aaS.
Regarding the IPv6 underlay network deployment, the network operator,
both in the IPv6 introduction stage and in IPv6-only stage, needs to
consider the necessity to connect IPv6 islands over an IPv4 transport
network, e.g. using 6PE or 6VPE. For metro and backbone network, the
current trend is to keep MPLS Data Plane and run IPv6/IPv4 over PE
devices at the border.
As operators do the transition in the future to IPv6 metro and
backbone network, e.g. Segment Routing over IPv6 dataplane (SRv6),
they are able to start the elimination of IPv4 from the underlay
transport network while continuing to provide overlay IPv4 services.
Basically, as also showed by the poll among network operators, from a
network architecture perspective, it is not advisable to apply Dual-
Stack to the transport network. It can be either IPv4 only or IPv6
only but never dual-stacked, considering the possibility to have
overlay IPv6 connections through MPLS VPNs or Segment Routing (SR).
In this scenario it is clear that the complete deployment of a full
IPv6-only network will take more time. If we look at the long term
evolution, IPv6 can bring other advantages like introducing advanced
protocols developed only on IPv6.
6. IPv6 incentives
It is possible to state that IPv6 adoption is no longer optional,
indeed there are several incentives for the IPv6 deployment:
Technical incentives: all Internet technical standard bodies and
network equipment vendors have endorsed IPv6 and view it as the
standards-based solution to the IPv4 address shortage. The IETF,
as well as other Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs), need
to ensure that their standards do not assume IPv4. The IAB
expects that the IETF will stop requiring IPv4 compatibility in
new or extended protocols. Future IETF protocol work will then
optimize for and depend on IPv6. It is recommended by [RFC6540]
that all networking standards assume the use of IPv6 and be
written so they do not require IPv4. In addition, every Regional
Internet Registry worldwide strongly recommends immediate IPv6
adoption.
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Business incentives: with the emergence of new digital
technologies, such as 5G, IoT and Cloud, new use cases have come
into being and posed more new requirements for IPv6 deployment.
Over time, numerous technical and economic stop-gap measures have
been developed in an attempt to extend the lifetime of IPv4, but
all of these measures add cost and complexity to network
infrastructure and raise significant barriers to innovation. It
is widely recognized that full transition to IPv6 is the only
viable option to ensure future growth and innovation in Internet
technology and services. Several large networks and Data Centers
have already evolved their internal infrastructures to be
IPv6-only. Forward looking large corporations are also working
toward the transition of their enterprise networks to IPv6-only
environments.
Governments incentives: governments have a huge responsibility in
promoting IPv6 deployment within their countries. There are
example of governments already adopting policies to encourage IPv6
utilization or enforce increased security on IPv4. So, even
without funding the IPv6 transition, governments can recommend to
add IPv6 compatibility for every connectivity, service or products
bid. This will encourage the network operators and vendors who do
not want to miss out on government related bids to evolve their
infrastructures to be IPv6 capable. Any public incentives for
technical evolution will be bonded to IPv6 capabilities of the
technology itself. In this regard, in the United States, the
Office of Management and Budget is calling for an implementation
plan to have 80% of the IP-enabled resources on Federal networks
be IPv6-only by 2025. If resources cannot be converted, then the
Federal agency is required to have a plan to retire them. The
Call for Comment is at [US-FR] and [US-CIO]. In China, the
government launched IPv6 action plan in 2017, which requires that
networks, applications and terminal devices will fully support the
adoption of IPv6 by the end of 2025 [CN].
7. Call for action
There are some areas of improvement, that are often mentioned in the
literature and during the discussions on IPv6 deployment. This
section lists these topics and wants to start a call for action to
encourage more investigations on these aspects.
7.1. Transition choices
From an architectural perspective, a service provider or an
enterprise may perceive quite a complex task the transition to IPv6,
due to the many technical alternatives available and the changes
required in management and operations. Moreover, the choice of the
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method to support the transition may depend on factors specific to
the operator's or the enterprise's context, such as the IPv6 network
design that fits the service requirements, the deployment strategy,
and the service and network operations.
This section briefly highlights the basic approaches that service
providers and enterprises may take. The scope is to raise the
discussion whether actions may be taken that allow to overcome the
issues highlighted and further push the adoption of IPv6.
7.1.1. Service providers
IPv6 is introduced at the service layer when a service requiring
IPv6-based connectivity is deployed in an IPv4-based network. In
this case, as already mentioned in the previous sections, a strategy
is based on two stages: IPv6 introduction and IPv6-only.
For fixed operators, the massive CPE software upgrade to support
Dual-Stack started in most of service providers network and the
traffic percentage is currently between 30% and 40% of IPv6, looking
at the global statistics. This is valid for a network operator that
provides Dual-Stack and gives the same opportunity for end terminal
applications to choose freely the path that they want and assuming a
normal Internet usage. Anyway, it is interesting to see that in the
latest years all major content providers have already implemented
Dual-Stack access to their services and most of them have implemented
IPv6-only in their Data Centers. Indeed, in some cases the
percentage of IPv6 traffic can also exceed 65%, reaching even 80-90%.
This aspect could affect the decision on the IPv6 adoption for an
operator, but there are also other aspects like the current IPv4
addressing status, CPE costs, CGN costs and so on. Most operators
already understood the need to adopt IPv6 in their networks and
services, and also to promote the diffusion into their clients, while
others are still at the edge of a massive implementation decision.
Indeed, two situations are possible:
Operators that have already employed CGN and have introduced IPv6
in their networks, so they remain attached to a Dual-Stack
architecture. Although IPv6 brought them to a more technological
advanced state, CGN, on the other end, boosts for some time their
ability to supply CPE IPv4 connectivity.
Operators with a Dual-Stack architecture that have introduced IPv6
both in the backbone and for the CPEs, but when reaching the limit
in terms of number of IPv4 addresses available, they need to start
defining and start to apply a new strategy that can be through CGN
or with an IPv6-only with IPv4aaS approach.
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For mobile operators, the situation is different since they are
stretching their IPv4 address space since CGN translation levels have
been reached and no more IPv4 public pool addresses are available.
The new requirements from IoT services, 5G 3GPP release
implementations, Voice over Long-Term Evolution (VoLTE) together with
the constraints of national regulator lawful interception are seen as
major drivers for IPv6. For these reasons, two situations are
possible:
Some mobile operators choose to implement Dual-Stack as first and
immediate mitigation solution.
Other mobile operators prefer to move to IPv6-only solution(e.g.
464XLAT) since Dual-Stack only mitigates and does not solve
completely the IPv4 address scarcity issue.
7.1.2. Enterprises
The business reasons for IPv6 is unique to each enterprise especially
for the internal network. But the most common drivers are on the
external network due to the fact that when Internet service
providers, run out of IPv4 addresses, they will provide native IPv6
and non-native IPv4. So for client networks trying to reach
enterprise networks, the IPv6 experience will be better than the
transitional IPv4 if the enterprise deploys IPv6 in its public-facing
services. Enterprise that is or will be expanding into emerging
markets or that partners with other companies who use IPv6 (larger
enterprise, governments, service providers) has to deploy IPv6 or
plan to do in the near term to support the long term goals. As an
example it is possible to mention the emerging energy market and in
particular SmartGrid where high density of IP-enabled endpoints are
needed and IPv6 is a key technology. IPv6 also shows its advantages
in the case of acquisition, indeed when an enterprise merge two
networks which use IPv4 private addresses, the address space of the
two networks may overlap and this makes the merge difficult.
The dual stage approach described in the previous sections can be
still applicable for enterprises, even if the priorities to apply
either stage are different since they have to consider both the
internal and external network:
It is possible to start with Dual-Stack on hosts/OS and then in
client network distribution layer. This allows the IPv6
introduction independently since both hosts/OS and client networks
belong to the domain of the enterprise.
Dual-Stack can be further extended to WAN/campus core/edge
routers. Also, as temporary solution, the NAT64 can be used for
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servers/apps only capable of IPv4. Enterprise Data Center is also
to be considered for the IPv6 transition. In this regard the
application support needs to be taken into account, even if
virtualization should make DCs simpler and more flexible.
There are additional challenges also related to the campus network
and the cloud interconnection, indeed the networking may be not
homogeneous. IPv6 could help to build a flat network by
leveraging SD-WAN integration. The perspective of IPv6-only could
also ensure better end-to-end performance.
Enterprises (private, managed networks) worldwide have failed to
adopt IPv6, especially on internal networks. Some countries, in
particular in Asia, who faced a shortage of IPv4 addresses, have
moved somewhat more quickly. But, even there, the large "brick-and-
mortar" enterprises find no business reason to adopt IPv6.
The enterprise engineers and technicians also don't know how IPv6
works. The technicians want to get trained yet the management does
not feel that they do not want to pay for such training because they
do not see a business need for adoption. This creates an unfortunate
cycle where misinformation about the complexity of the IPv6 protocol
and unreasonable fears about security and manageability combine with
the perceived lack of urgent business needs to prevent adoption of
IPv6.
In 2019 and 2020, there has been a concerted effort by some grass
roots non-profits working with ARIN and APNIC to provide training
[ARIN-CG] [ISIF-ASIA-G].
Having said that, some problems such as the problem of application
porting to IPv6 are quite difficult, even if technically is not a big
issue. The reliance of the economic, governmental, and military
enterprise organizations on computer applications is great; the
number of legacy systems, and ossification at such organizations, is
also great. A number of mission-critical computer applications were
written in the 1970's. While they have the source code, no one at
the enterprise may be familiar with the application nor do they have
the funds for external resources. So, transitioning to IPv6 is quite
difficult.
The problem may be that of "First Mover Disadvantage".
Understandably, corporations, having responsibility to their
stakeholders, have upgraded to new technologies and architectures,
such as IPv6, only if it gains them revenue. Thus, legacy programs
and technical debt accumulate.
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7.1.3. Cloud and Data Centers
It was already highlighted how CSPs have adopted IPv6 in their
internal infrastructure but are also active in gathering IPv4
addresses on the transfer market to serve the current business needs
of IPv4 connectivity. This is primarily directed to serve the
transition to cloud of enterprise's applications.
As noted in the previous section, most enterprises do not consider
the transition to IPv6 as a priority. To this extent, the use of
IPv4-based network services by the CSPs will last. Yet, CSPs are
struggling to buy IPv4 addresses. If, in the next years, the
scarcity of IPv4 addresses becomes more evident, it is likely that
the cost of buying an IPv4 address by a CSP will be charged to an
enterprise as a fee. From a financial standpoint this effect might
be taken into consideration when evaluating the decision of moving to
IPv6.
It could be interesting to look at how much traffic in a network is
going to Caches and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). The response
is expected to be an high percentage, at least higher than 50% in
most of the cases. Since all the key Caches and CDNs are IPv6-ready
[Cldflr], [Akm], [Ggl], [Ntflx], [Amzn], [Mcrsft], [Vrzn]. So the
percentage of traffic going to the key Caches/CDNs is a good
approximation of the potential IPv6 traffic in a network.
7.1.4. CPEs and user devices
It can be noted that most of the user devices (e.g. smartphones) are
already IPv6-enabled for so many years. But there are exceptions,
for example smartTVs and Set-Top Box (STBs) typically had IPv6
support since few years ago, however not all the economies replace
them at the same pace.
As already mentioned, ISPs who historically provided public IPv4
addresses to their customers generally still have those IPv4
addresses (unless they chose to transfer them). Some have chosen to
put new customers on CGN but without touching existing customers.
Because of the extremely small number of customers who notice that
IPv4 is done via NAT444 (or even NAT4444 if the customer has set up
their home network with double NAT), it could be less likely to run
out of IPv4 addresses and private IPv4 space. But as IPv4-only
devices and traffic reduce, then the need to support private and
public IPv4 become less. So the CPE support to IPv6 is also an
important incentive to overcome Dual-Stack towards IPv6-only with
IPv4aaS.
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7.1.5. Industrial Internet
As the most promising protocol for network applications, IPv6 is
frequently mentioned in relation to Internet of Things and Industry
4.0. However, its industrial adoption, in particular in smart
manufacturing systems, has been much slower than expected. Indeed,
it is important to provide an easy way to familiarize system
architects and software developers with the IPv6 protocol and its
role in the application development life cycle in order to limit the
dependency on manual configuration and improve the tool support.
It is possible to differentiate types of data and access to
understand how and where the IPv6 transition can happen. In the
control network, determinism is required with full operational
visibility and control, as well as reliability and availability. In
monitoring IoT, best effort can be acceptable and low OPEX, zero-
touch functions autoconfiguration, zero-configuration. For
diagnostics and alerts, trust and transmissions that do not impact
the control network are needed. For safety, guarantees in terms of
redundancy, latency similar to the control network but with total
assurance, is necessary.
For IIoT applications, it would be desirable to be able to implement
a truly distributed system without dependencies to central components
like a DHCP server. In this regard the distributed IIoT applications
can leverage the configuration-less characteristic of IPv6 and in
this regard all the possible problems and compatibility issues with
IPv6 link local addresses, SLAAC (StateLess Address Auto
Configuration) needs to be investigated.
In addition, it could be interesting to have the ability to use IP
based communication and standard application protocols at every point
in the production process and further reduce the use of specialized
communication systems like PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) and
fieldbuses for real-time control to subsystems where this is
absolutely necessary.
7.1.6. Government and Regulators
The slogan should be "stimulate if you can, regulate if you must".
The global picture shows that the deployment of IPv6 worldwide is not
uniform at all [G_stats], [APNIC1]. Countries where either market
conditions or local regulators have stimulated the adoption of IPv6
show clear sign of growth.
As an example, zooming into the European Union area, countries such
as Belgium, France and Germany are well ahead in terms of IPv6
adoption. The French National Regulator, Arcep, can be considered a
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good reference of National support to IPv6. [ARCEP] introduced an
obligation for the operators awarded with a license to use 5G
frequencies (3.4-3.8GHz) in Metropolitan France to be IPv6
compatible. As stated, "the goal is to ensure that services are
interoperable and to remove obstacles to using services that are only
available in IPv6, as the number of devices in use continues to soar,
and because the RIPE NCC has run out of IPv4 addresses". A slow
adoption of IPv6 could prevent new Internet services to widespread or
create a barrier to entry for newcomers to the market. "IPv6 can help
to increase competition in the telecom industry, and help to
industrialize a country for specific vertical sectors".
A renewed industrial policy might be advocated in other countries and
regions to stimulate IPv6 adoption. As an example, in the United
States, the Office of Management and Budget is also calling for IPv6
adoption [US-FR], [US-CIO].
7.2. Network Operations
An important factor is represented by the need for training the
network operations workforce. Deploying IPv6 requires it as policies
and procedures have to be adjusted in order to successfully plan and
complete an IPv6 transition. Staff has to be aware of the best
practices for managing IPv4 and IPv6 assets. In addition to network
nodes, network management applications and equipment need to be
properly configured and in some cases also replaced. This may
introduce more complexity and costs for the transition.
7.3. Performance
Despite their relative differences, people tend to compare the
performance of IPv6 versus IPv4, even if these differences are not so
important for applications. In some cases, IPv6 behaving "worse"
than IPv4 tends to re-enforce the justification of not moving towards
the full adoption of IPv6. This position is supported when looking
at available analytics on two critical parameters: packet loss and
latency. These parameters have been constantly monitored over time,
but only a few extensive researches and measurement campaigns are
currently providing up-to-date information. This section will look
briefly at both of them, considering the available measurements.
Operators are invited to bring in their experience and enrich the
information reported below.
7.3.1. IPv6 latency
[APNIC5] constantly compares the latency of both address families.
Currently, the worldwide average is still in favor of IPv4. Zooming
at the country or even at the operator level, it is possible to get
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more detailed information and appreciate that cases exist where IPv6
is faster than IPv4. [APRICOT] highlights how when a difference in
performance exists it is often related to asymmetric routing issues.
Other possible explanations for a relative latency difference lays on
the specificity of the IPv6 header which allows packet fragmentation.
In turn, this means that hardware needs to spend cycles to analyze
all of the header sections and when it is not capable of handling one
of them it drops the packet. Even considering this, a difference in
latency stands and sometimes it is perceived as a limiting factor for
IPv6. A few measurement campaigns on the behavior of IPv6 in CDNs
are also available [MAPRG-IETF99], [INFOCOM]. The TCP connect time
is still higher for IPv6 in both cases, even if the gap has reduced
over the analysis time window.
7.3.2. IPv6 packet loss
[APNIC5] also provides the failure rate of IPv6. Two reports, namely
[RIPE1] and [APRICOT], discussed the associated trend, showing how
the average worldwide failure rate of IPv6 worsened from around 1.5%
in 2016 to a value exceeding 2% in 2020. Reasons for this effect may
be found in endpoints with an unreachable IPv6 address, routing
instability or firewall behaviour. Yet, this worsening effect may
appear as disturbing for a plain transition to IPv6. Operators are
once again invited to share their experience and discuss the
performance of IPv6 in their network scenarios.
7.3.3. Router's performance
It is worth mentioning the aspect of Router's performance too. IPv6
is 4 times longer than IPv4 and it is possible to do a simple
calculation: the same memory on routers could permit to have 1/4 of
different tables (routing, filtering, next hop). Anyway, most of the
routers showed a remarkably similar throughput and latency for IPv4
and IPv6. For smaller software switching platforms, some tests
reported a lower throughput for IPv6 compared to IPv4 only in case of
smaller packet sizes, while for larger hardware switching platforms
there was no throughput variance between IPv6 and IPv4 both at larger
frame sizes and at the smaller packet size.
7.3.4. Customer Experience
It has been publicly reported by IPv6 content providers, such as for
example FaceBook and Akamai, that users have a better experience when
using IPv6-only compared to IPv4 (40% faster time to complete HTTP
get ) [ISOC2]. This can be easily explained because in the case of
IPv6 users, reaching IPv6-only Data Centers, IPv6 is end-to-end,
without translations. Instead when using IPv4 there is a NAT
translation in the CPE, maybe one more in the ISP CGN and then, the
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translation from IPv4 to IPv6 (and back to IPv4) in the IPv6-only
content provider Data Center. In summary, that means that the
customer "perceived experience" can be close to "double" faster with
IPv6 than with IPv4.
7.4. IPv6 security
IPv6 presents a number of exciting possibilities for the expanding
global Internet, however, there are also noted security challenges
associated with the transition to IPv6. [I-D.ietf-opsec-v6] analyzes
the operational security issues in several places of a network
(enterprises, service providers and residential users).
The security aspects have to be considered to keep the same level of
security as it exists nowadays in an IPv4-only network environment.
The autoconfiguration features of IPv6 will require some more
attention for the things going on at the network level. Router
discovery and address autoconfiguration may produce unexpected
results and security holes. The IPsec protocol implementation has
initially been set as mandatory in every node of the network, but
then relaxed to recommendation due to extremely constrained hardware
deployed in some devices e.g., sensors, Internet of Things (IoT).
There are some concerns in terms of the security but, on the other
hand, IPv6 offers increased efficiency. There are measurable
benefits to IPv6 to notice, like more transparency, improved
mobility, and also end to end security (if implemented).
As reported in [ISOC3], comparing IPv6 and IPv4 at the protocol
level, one may probably conclude that the increased complexity of
IPv6 results in an increased number of attack vectors, that imply
more possible ways to perform different types attacks. However, a
more interesting and practical question is how IPv6 deployments
compare to IPv4 deployments in terms of security. In that sense,
there are a number of aspects to consider.
Most security vulnerabilities related to network protocols are based
on implementation flaws. Typically, security researchers find
vulnerabilities in protocol implementations, which eventually are
"patched" to mitigate such vulnerabilities. Over time, this process
of finding and patching vulnerabilities results in more robust
implementations. For obvious reasons, the IPv4 protocols have
benefited from the work of security researchers for much longer, and
thus IPv4 implementations are generally more robust than IPv6.
However, this is turning also in the other way around, as with more
IPv6 deployment there may be older IPv4 flaws not discovered or even
not resolved anymore by vendors.
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Besides the intrinsic properties of the protocols, the security level
of the resulting deployments is closely related to the level of
expertise of network and security engineers. In that sense, there is
obviously much more experience and confidence with deploying and
operating IPv4 networks than with deploying and operating IPv6
networks.
Finally, implementation of IPv6 security controls obviously depends
on the availability of features in security devices and tools.
Whilst there have been improvements in this area, there is a lack of
parity in terms of features and/or performance when considering IPv4
and IPv6 support in security devices and tools.
7.4.1. Protocols security issues
It is important to say that IPv6 is not more or less secure than IPv4
and the knowledge of the protocol is the best security measure.
In general there are security concerns related to IPv6 that can be
classified as follows:
o Basic IPv6 protocol (Basic header, Extension Headers, Addressing)
o IPv6 associated protocols (ICMPv6, NDP, MLD, DNS, DHCPv6)
o Internet-wide IPv6 security (Filtering, DDoS, Transition
Mechanisms)
ICMPv6 is an integral part of IPv6 and performs error reporting and
diagnostic functions. Since it is used in many IPv6 related
protocols, ICMPv6 packet with multicast address should be filtered
carefully to avoid attacks. Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) is a
node discovery protocol in IPv6 which replaces and enhances functions
of ARP. Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) is used by IPv6 routers
for discovering multicast listeners on a directly attached link, much
like Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is used in IPv4.
These IPv6 associated protocols like ICMPv6, NDP and MLD are
something new compared to IPv4, so they adds new security threats and
the related solutions are still under discussion today. NDP has
vulnerabilities [RFC3756] [RFC6583]. The specification says to use
IPsec but it is impractical and not used, on the other hand, SEND
(SEcure Neighbour Discovery) [RFC3971] is not widely available.
[RIPE2] describes the most important threats and solutions regarding
IPv6 security.
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7.4.2. Transition technologies
It is also worth considering the additional security issues brought
into existence by the applied IPv6 transition technologies used to
implement IPv4aaS, e.g. 464XLAT, DS-Lite. Some hints are in the
paper [ComputSecur].
The different transition mechanisms must be deployed and operated in
a secure way. [I-D.ietf-opsec-v6] also proposes operational
guidelines for the most known and deployed transition techniques.
7.4.3. IPv6 Extension Headers and Fragmentation
IPv6 Extension Headers imply some issues, in particular their
flexibility also means an increased complexity, indeed security
devices and software must process the full chain of headers while
firewalls must be able to filter based on Extension Headers.
Additionally, packets with IPv6 Extension Headers may be dropped in
the public Internet. Some documents, e.g.
[I-D.hinden-6man-hbh-processing], [I-D.bonica-6man-ext-hdr-update],
[I-D.peng-v6ops-hbh] analyze and provide guidance regarding the
processing procedures of IPv6 Extension Headers.
There are some possible attacks through EHs, for example RH0 can be
used for traffic amplification over a remote path and it is
deprecated. Other attacks based on Extension Headers are based on
IPv6 Header Chains and Fragmentation that could be used to bypass
filtering, but, to mitigate this effect, Header chain should go only
in the first fragment and the use of the IPv6 Fragmentation Header is
forbidden in all Neighbor Discovery messages.
Fragment Header is used by IPv6 source node to send a packet bigger
than path MTU and the Destination host processes fragment headers.
There are several threats related to fragmentation to pay attention
to e.g. overlapping fragments (not allowed) resource consumption
while waiting for last fragment (to discard), atomic fragments (to be
isolated).
7.4.4. Oversized IPv6 packets
A lot of additional functionality has been added to IPv6 primarily by
adding Extension Headers and/or using overlay encapsulation. All of
the these expand the packet size and this could lead to oversized
packets that would be dropped on some links.
It is better to investigate the potential problems with oversized
packets in the first place. Fragmentation must not be done in
transit and a better solution needs to be found, e.g. upgrade all
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links to bigger MTU or follow specific recommendations at the source
node. [I-D.vasilenko-v6ops-ipv6-oversized-analysis] analyzes
available standards for the resolution of oversized packet drops.
8. Security Considerations
This document has no impact on the security properties of specific
IPv6 protocols or transition tools. The security considerations
relating to the protocols and transition tools are described in the
relevant documents.
9. Contributors
Sebastien Lourdez
Post Luxembourg
Email: sebastien.lourdez@post.lu
10. Acknowledgements
The authors of this document would like to thank Brian Carpenter,
Fred Baker, Jordi Palet Martinez, Alexandre Petrescu, Barbara Stark,
Haisheng Yu(Johnson), Dhruv Dhody, Gabor Lencse, Shuping Peng, Eduard
Vasilenko and Xipeng Xiao for their comments and review of this
document.
11. IANA Considerations
This document has no actions for IANA.
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-opsec-v6]
Vyncke, E., Kk, C., Kaeo, M., and E. Rey, "Operational
Security Considerations for IPv6 Networks", draft-ietf-
opsec-v6-27 (work in progress), May 2021.
[I-D.ietf-v6ops-transition-comparison]
Lencse, G., Martinez, J. P., Howard, L., Patterson, R.,
and I. Farrer, "Pros and Cons of IPv6 Transition
Technologies for IPv4aaS", draft-ietf-v6ops-transition-
comparison-00 (work in progress), April 2021.
[RFC1918] Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, B., Karrenberg, D., de Groot, G.,
and E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private Internets",
BCP 5, RFC 1918, DOI 10.17487/RFC1918, February 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1918>.
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[RFC3756] Nikander, P., Ed., Kempf, J., and E. Nordmark, "IPv6
Neighbor Discovery (ND) Trust Models and Threats",
RFC 3756, DOI 10.17487/RFC3756, May 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3756>.
[RFC3971] Arkko, J., Ed., Kempf, J., Zill, B., and P. Nikander,
"SEcure Neighbor Discovery (SEND)", RFC 3971,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3971, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3971>.
[RFC4213] Nordmark, E. and R. Gilligan, "Basic Transition Mechanisms
for IPv6 Hosts and Routers", RFC 4213,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4213, October 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4213>.
[RFC6036] Carpenter, B. and S. Jiang, "Emerging Service Provider
Scenarios for IPv6 Deployment", RFC 6036,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6036, October 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6036>.
[RFC6180] Arkko, J. and F. Baker, "Guidelines for Using IPv6
Transition Mechanisms during IPv6 Deployment", RFC 6180,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6180, May 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6180>.
[RFC6333] Durand, A., Droms, R., Woodyatt, J., and Y. Lee, "Dual-
Stack Lite Broadband Deployments Following IPv4
Exhaustion", RFC 6333, DOI 10.17487/RFC6333, August 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6333>.
[RFC6540] George, W., Donley, C., Liljenstolpe, C., and L. Howard,
"IPv6 Support Required for All IP-Capable Nodes", BCP 177,
RFC 6540, DOI 10.17487/RFC6540, April 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6540>.
[RFC6583] Gashinsky, I., Jaeggli, J., and W. Kumari, "Operational
Neighbor Discovery Problems", RFC 6583,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6583, March 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6583>.
[RFC6877] Mawatari, M., Kawashima, M., and C. Byrne, "464XLAT:
Combination of Stateful and Stateless Translation",
RFC 6877, DOI 10.17487/RFC6877, April 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6877>.
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[RFC6883] Carpenter, B. and S. Jiang, "IPv6 Guidance for Internet
Content Providers and Application Service Providers",
RFC 6883, DOI 10.17487/RFC6883, March 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6883>.
[RFC7381] Chittimaneni, K., Chown, T., Howard, L., Kuarsingh, V.,
Pouffary, Y., and E. Vyncke, "Enterprise IPv6 Deployment
Guidelines", RFC 7381, DOI 10.17487/RFC7381, October 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7381>.
[RFC7596] Cui, Y., Sun, Q., Boucadair, M., Tsou, T., Lee, Y., and I.
Farrer, "Lightweight 4over6: An Extension to the Dual-
Stack Lite Architecture", RFC 7596, DOI 10.17487/RFC7596,
July 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7596>.
[RFC7597] Troan, O., Ed., Dec, W., Li, X., Bao, C., Matsushima, S.,
Murakami, T., and T. Taylor, Ed., "Mapping of Address and
Port with Encapsulation (MAP-E)", RFC 7597,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7597, July 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7597>.
[RFC7599] Li, X., Bao, C., Dec, W., Ed., Troan, O., Matsushima, S.,
and T. Murakami, "Mapping of Address and Port using
Translation (MAP-T)", RFC 7599, DOI 10.17487/RFC7599, July
2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7599>.
12.2. Informative References
[Akm] Akamai, "IPv6 Adaptation",
<https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/
product-brief/ipv6-adaptation-product-brief.pdf>.
[Akm-stats]
Akamai, "IPv6 Adoption Visualization", 2021,
<https://www.akamai.com/uk/en/resources/our-thinking/
state-of-the-internet-report/state-of-the-internet-ipv6-
adoption-visualization.jsp>.
[Alx] Alexa, "The top 500 sites on the web", 2021,
<https://www.alexa.com/topsites>.
[Amzn] Amazon, "Announcing Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
support for Amazon CloudFront, AWS WAF, and Amazon S3
Transfer Acceleration", <https://aws.amazon.com/es/about-
aws/whats-new/2016/10/ipv6-support-for-cloudfront-waf-and-
s3-transfer-acceleration/>.
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[APNIC1] APNIC, "IPv6 Capable Rate by country (%)", 2020,
<https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6>.
[APNIC2] APNIC2, "Addressing 2020", 2021,
<https://labs.apnic.net/?p=1400>.
[APNIC3] APNIC, "BGP in 2019 - The BGP Table", 2020,
<https://blog.apnic.net/2020/01/14/bgp-in-2019-the-bgp-
table/>.
[APNIC4] APNIC, "IPv6 in 2020", 2021,
<https://blog.apnic.net/2021/02/08/ipv6-in-2020/>.
[APNIC5] APNIC, "Average RTT Difference (ms) (V6 - V4) for World
(XA)", 2020, <https://stats.labs.apnic.net/v6perf/XA>.
[APRICOT] Huston, G., "Average RTT Difference (ms) (V6 - V4) for
World (XA)", 2020,
<https://2020.apricot.net/assets/files/APAE432/ipv6-
performance-measurement.pdf>.
[ARCEP] ARCEP, "Arcep Decision no 2019-1386, Decision on the terms
and conditions for awarding licences to use frequencies in
the 3.4-3.8GHz band", 2019,
<https://www.arcep.fr/uploads/tx_gsavis/19-1386.pdf>.
[ARIN-CG] ARIN, "Community Grant Program: IPv6 Security,
Applications, and Training for Enterprises", 2020,
<https://www.arin.net/about/community_grants/recipients/>.
[BGR_1] BIIGROUP, "China Commercial IPv6 and DNSSEC Deployment
Monitor", 2021,
<http://218.2.231.237:5001/cgi-bin/generate>.
[BGR_2] BIIGROUP, "China Government IPv6 and DNSSEC Deployment
Monitor", 2021,
<http://218.2.231.237:5001/cgi-bin/generate_gov>.
[BGR_3] BIIGROUP, "China Education IPv6 and DNSSEC Deployment
Monitor", 2021,
<http://218.2.231.237:5001/cgi-bin/generate_edu>.
[CAIR] Cisco, "Cisco Annual Internet Report (2018-2023) White
Paper", 2020,
<https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/
executive-perspectives/annual-internet-report/white-paper-
c11-741490.html>.
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[Cldflr] Cloudflare, "Understanding and configuring Cloudflare's
IPv6 support", <https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/
articles/229666767-Understanding-and-configuring-
Cloudflare-s-IPv6-support>.
[CN] China.org.cn, "China to speed up IPv6-based Internet
development", 2017, <http://www.china.org.cn/
business/2017-11/27/content_41948814.htm>.
[ComputSecur]
Computers & Security (Elsevier), "Methodology for the
identification of potential security issues of different
IPv6 transition technologies: Threat analysis of DNS64 and
stateful NAT64", DOI 10.1016/j.cose.2018.04.012, 2018.
[Csc6lab] Cisco, "World - Display Content Data", 2021,
<https://6lab.cisco.com/index.php>.
[ETSI-IP6-WhitePaper]
ETSI, "ETSI White Paper No. 35: IPv6 Best Practices,
Benefits, Transition Challenges and the Way Forward",
ISBN 979-10-92620-31-1, 2020.
[G_stats] Google, "Google IPv6 Per-Country IPv6 adoption", 2021,
<https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/
statistics.html#tab=per-country-ipv6-adoption>.
[Ggl] Google, "Introduction to GGC",
<https://support.google.com/interconnect/
answer/9058809?hl=en>.
[HxBld] HexaBuild, "IPv6 Adoption Report 2020", 2020,
<https://hexabuild.io/assets/files/HexaBuild-IPv6-
Adoption-Report-2020.pdf>.
[I-D.bonica-6man-ext-hdr-update]
Bonica, R. and T. Jinmei, "Inserting, Processing And
Deleting IPv6 Extension Headers", draft-bonica-6man-ext-
hdr-update-05 (work in progress), March 2021.
[I-D.hinden-6man-hbh-processing]
Hinden, R. M. and G. Fairhurst, "IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options
Processing Procedures", draft-hinden-6man-hbh-
processing-00 (work in progress), December 2020.
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[I-D.palet-v6ops-ipv6-only]
Martinez, J. P., "IPv6-only Terminology Definition",
draft-palet-v6ops-ipv6-only-05 (work in progress), March
2020.
[I-D.peng-v6ops-hbh]
Peng, S., Li, Z., Xie, C., Qin, Z., and G. Mishra,
"Processing of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header", draft-peng-
v6ops-hbh-03 (work in progress), January 2021.
[I-D.vasilenko-v6ops-ipv6-oversized-analysis]
Vasilenko, E., Xipeng, X., and D. Khaustov, "IPv6
Oversized Packets Analysis", draft-vasilenko-v6ops-ipv6-
oversized-analysis-00 (work in progress), March 2021.
[IAB] IAB, "IAB Statement on IPv6", 2016,
<https://www.iab.org/2016/11/07/iab-statement-on-ipv6/>.
[IGP-GT] Internet Governance Project, Georgia Tech, "The hidden
standards war: economic factors affecting IPv6
deployment", 2019, <https://via.hypothes.is/
https://www.internetgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/
IPv6-Migration-Study-final-report.pdf>.
[INFOCOM] Doan, T., "A Longitudinal View of Netflix: Content
Delivery over IPv6 and Content Cache Deployments", 2020,
<https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1109/
INFOCOM41043.2020.9155367>.
[ISIF-ASIA-G]
ISIF Asia, "Internet Operations Research Grant: IPv6
Deployment at Enterprises. IIESoc. India", 2020,
<https://isif.asia/2020-grantees/>.
[ISOC1] Internet Society, "State of IPv6 Deployment 2018", 2018,
<https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/2018/state-of-
ipv6-deployment-2018/>.
[ISOC2] Internet Society, "Facebook News Feeds Load 20-40% Faster
Over IPv6", 2015,
<https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2015/04/facebook-
news-feeds-load-20-40-faster-over-ipv6/>.
[ISOC3] Internet Society, "IPv6 Security FAQ", 2019,
<https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-
content/uploads/2019/02/Deploy360-IPv6-Security-FAQ.pdf>.
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[MAPRG-IETF99]
Bajpai, V., "Measuring YouTube Content Delivery over
IPv6", 2017, <https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99/slides/
slides-99-maprg-measuring-youtube-content-delivery-over-
ipv6-00.pdf>.
[Mcrsft] Microsoft, "IPv6 for Azure VMs available in most regions",
<https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/ipv6-for-azure-
vms/>.
[NRO] AFRINIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC, RIPE NCC, "Internet Number
Resource Status Report", 2020, <https://www.nro.net/wp-
content/uploads/NRO-Statistics-2020-Q4-FINAL.pdf>.
[NST_1] NIST, "Estimating Industry IPv6 and DNSSEC External
Service Deployment Status", 2021, <https://fedv6-
deployment.antd.nist.gov/cgi-bin/generate-com>.
[NST_2] NIST, "Estimating USG IPv6 and DNSSEC External Service
Deployment Status", 2021, <https://fedv6-
deployment.antd.nist.gov/cgi-bin/generate-gov>.
[NST_3] NIST, "Estimating University IPv6 and DNSSEC External
Service Deployment Status", 2021, <https://fedv6-
deployment.antd.nist.gov/cgi-bin/generate-edu>.
[Ntflx] Netflix, "Enabling Support for IPv6",
<https://netflixtechblog.com/enabling-support-for-
ipv6-48a495d5196f>.
[POTAROO1]
POTAROO, "Addressing 2020", 2020,
<https://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2021-01/addr2020.html>.
[POTAROO2]
POTAROO, "IPv6 Resource Distribution Reports", 2021,
<https://resources.potaroo.net/iso3166/archive/>.
[RFC6555] Wing, D. and A. Yourtchenko, "Happy Eyeballs: Success with
Dual-Stack Hosts", RFC 6555, DOI 10.17487/RFC6555, April
2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6555>.
[RFC8305] Schinazi, D. and T. Pauly, "Happy Eyeballs Version 2:
Better Connectivity Using Concurrency", RFC 8305,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8305, December 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8305>.
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[RIPE1] Huston, G., "Measuring IPv6 Performance", 2016,
<https://ripe73.ripe.net/wp-content/uploads/
presentations/35-2016-10-24-v6-performance.pdf>.
[RIPE2] RIPE, "IPv6 Security", 2019,
<https://www.ripe.net/support/training/material/ipv6-
security/ipv6security-slides.pdf>.
[RlncJ] Reliance Jio, "IPv6-only adoption challenges and
standardization requirements", 2020,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/109/materials/
slides-109-v6ops-ipv6-only-adoption-challenges-and-
standardization-requirements-03>.
[SNDVN] SANDVINE, "Sandvine releases 2020 Mobile Internet
Phenomena Report: YouTube is over 25% of all mobile
traffic", 2020, <https://www.sandvine.com/press-releases/
sandvine-releases-2020-mobile-internet-phenomena-report-
youtube-is-over-25-of-all-mobile-traffic>.
[US-CIO] The CIO Council, "Memorandum for Heads of Executive
Departments and Agencies. Completing the Transition to
Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)", 2020,
<https://www.cio.gov/assets/resources/internet-protocol-
version6-draft.pdf>.
[US-FR] Federal Register, "Request for Comments on Updated
Guidance for Completing the Transition to the Next
Generation Internet Protocol, Internet Protocol Version 6
(IPv6)", 2020, <https://www.federalregister.gov/
documents/2020/03/02/2020-04202/request-for-comments-on-
updated-guidance-for-completing-the-transition-to-the-
next-generation>.
[Vrzn] Verizon, "Verizon Digital Media Services announces IPv6
Compliance", <https://www.verizondigitalmedia.com/blog/
verizon-digital-media-services-announces-
ipv6-compliance/>.
[W3Tech] W3Tech, "Historical yearly trends in the usage statistics
of site elements for websites", 2021, <https://w3techs.com
/technologies/history_overview/site_element/all/y>.
[WIPv6L] World IPv6 Launch, "World IPv6 Launch - Measurements",
2021, <https://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/>.
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Appendix A. Summary of Questionnaire and Replies for network operators
A survey was proposed to more than 50 service providers in the
European region during the third quarter of 2020 to ask for their
plans on IPv6 and the status of IPv6 deployment.
40 people, representing 38 organizations, provided a response. This
appendix summarizes the results obtained.
Respondents' business
Convergent Mobile Fixed
Type of operators 82% 8% 11%
Question 1. Do you have plan to move more fixed or mobile or
enterprise users to IPv6 in the next 2 years?
a. If so, fixed, or mobile, or enterprise?
b. What are the reasons to do so?
c. When to start: already on going, in 12 months, after 12 months?
d. Which transition solution will you use, Dual-Stack, DS-Lite,
464XLAT, MAP-T/E?
Answer 1.A (38 respondents)
Yes No
Plans availability 79% 21%
Mobile Fixed Enterprise Don't answer
Business segment 63% 63% 50% 3%
Answer 1.B (29 respondents)
Even this was an open question, some common answers can be found.
14 respondents (48%) highlighted issues related to IPv4 depletion.
The reason to move to IPv6 is to avoid private and/or overlapping
addresses.
For 6 respondents (20%) 5G/IoT is a business incentive to introduce
IPv6.
4 respondents (13%) also highlight that there is a National
regulation request to enable IPv6 associated with the launch of 5G.
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4 respondents (13%) consider IPv6 as a part of their innovation
strategy or an enabler for new services.
4 respondents (13%) introduce IPv6 because of Enterprise customers
demand.
Answer 1.C (30 respondents)
On-going In 12 months After 12 months Don't answer
Timeframe 60% 33% 0% 7%
Answer 1.D (28 respondents for cellular, 27 for wireline)
Transition in use Dual-Stack 464XLAT MAP-T Don't answer
Cellular 39% 21% 4% 36%
Transition in use Dual-Stack DS-Lite 6RD/6VPE Don't answer
Wireline 59% 19% 4% 19%
Question 2. Do you need to change network devices for the above
goal?
a. If yes, what kind of devices: CPE, or BNG/mobile core, or NAT?
b. Will you migrate your metro or backbone or backhaul network to
support IPv6?
Answer 2.A (30 respondents)
Yes No Don't answer
Need of changing 43% 33% 23%
CPEs Routers BNG CGN Mobile core
What to change 47% 27% 20% 33% 27%
Answer 2.B (22 respondents)
Yes Future No
Plans for migration 9% 9% 82%
Appendix B. Summary of Questionnaire and Replies for enterprises
The Industry Network Technology Council (INTC) developed the
following poll to verify the need or willingness of medium-to-large
US-based enterprises for training and consultancy on IPv6
(https://industrynetcouncil.org/).
54 organizations provided an answer.
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Question 1. How much IPv6 implementation have you done at your
organization? (54 respondents)
None 16.67%
Some people have gotten some training 16.67%
Many people have gotten some training 1.85%
Web site is IPv6 enabled 7.41%
Most equipment is dual-stacked 31.48%
Have an IPv6 migration plan for entire network 5.56%
Running native IPv6 in many places 20.37%
Entire network is IPv6-only 0.00%
Question 2. What kind of help or classes would you like to see INTC
do? ( 54 respondents)
Classes/labs on IPv6 security 66.67%
Classes/labs on IPv6 fundamentals 55.56%
Classes/labs on address planning/network conf. 57.41%
Classes/labs on IPv6 troubleshooting 66.67%
Classes/labs on application conversion 35.19%
Other 14.81%
Question 3. As you begin to think about the implementation of IPv6
at your organization, what areas do you feel are of concern? (54
respondents)
Security 31.48%
Application conversion 25.93%
Training 27.78%
All the above 33.33%
Don't know enough to answer 14.81%
Other 9.26%
Authors' Addresses
Giuseppe Fioccola
Huawei Technologies
Riesstrasse, 25
Munich 80992
Germany
Email: giuseppe.fioccola@huawei.com
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Paolo Volpato
Huawei Technologies
Via Lorenteggio, 240
Milan 20147
Italy
Email: paolo.volpato@huawei.com
Nalini Elkins
Inside Products
36A Upper Circle
Carmel Valley CA 93924
United States of America
Email: nalini.elkins@insidethestack.com
Jordi Palet Martinez
The IPv6 Company
Molino de la Navata, 75
La Navata - Galapagar, Madrid 28420
Spain
Email: jordi.palet@theipv6company.com
Gyan S. Mishra
Verizon Inc.
Email: gyan.s.mishra@verizon.com
Chongfeng Xie
China Telecom
Email: xiechf@chinatelecom.cn
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