Technical Summary
This document explains how to interconnect IPv6 islands over a
Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)-enabled IPv4 cloud. This
approach relies on IPv6 Provider Edge routers (6PE) which are Dual
Stack in order to connect to IPv6 islands and to the MPLS core which
is only required to run IPv4 MPLS. The 6PE routers exchange the IPv6
reachability information transparently over the core using the
Multi-Protocol Border Gateway Protocol (MP-BGP) over IPv4. In doing
so, the BGP Next Hop field is used to convey the IPv4 address of the
6PE router so that dynamically established IPv4-signaled MPLS Label
Switched Paths (LSPs) can be used without explicit tunnel
configuration.
Working Group Summary
The v6ops working group had consensus to develop this approach,
and handed the document off to the idr working group for its BGP
expertise. There were no comments on the document during the idr
WG Last Call.
Protocol Quality
There are multiple implementations of this specification. Specifically
there are two implementations by the router vendors, and three
implementations by the network test equipment vendors. The full
implementation report is available (see
http://www.ietf.org/IESG/Implementations/Implementation_draft-levy-idr-6pe-survey.txt).
Note to RFC Editor
Please publish this version, instead of the previously approved
version 06. This version includes the changes described in
the previous approval message's RFC Editor Note.