Emerging Service Provider Scenarios for IPv6 Deployment
RFC 6036
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) B. Carpenter
Request for Comments: 6036 Univ. of Auckland
Category: Informational S. Jiang
ISSN: 2070-1721 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
October 2010
Emerging Service Provider Scenarios for IPv6 Deployment
Abstract
This document describes practices and plans that are emerging among
Internet Service Providers for the deployment of IPv6 services. They
are based on practical experience so far, as well as current plans
and requirements, reported in a survey of a number of ISPs carried
out in early 2010. This document identifies a number of technology
gaps, but it does not make recommendations.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6036.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Carpenter & Jiang Informational [Page 1]
RFC 6036 ISP IPv6 Scenarios October 2010
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Survey of ISP's Experience, Plans, and Requirements .............4
2.1. Methodology ................................................4
2.2. General Questions about IP Service .........................4
2.3. Requirements for IPv6 Service ..............................5
2.4. Status and Plans for IPv6 Service ..........................5
2.5. IPv6 Technologies ..........................................5
2.6. Effect of Size .............................................6
3. Lessons from Experience and Planning ............................7
4. Gap Analysis ....................................................8
4.1. Product Issues .............................................8
4.2. Protocol Issues ............................................9
4.3. Documentation and General Issues ..........................10
5. Security Considerations ........................................11
6. Acknowledgements ...............................................11
7. Informative References .........................................12
Appendix A. Summary of Replies ....................................14
Appendix B. Questionnaire .........................................19
1. Introduction
As is well known, the approaching exhaustion of IPv4 address space
will bring about a situation in which Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) are faced with a choice between one or more of three major
alternatives:
1. Squeeze the use of IPv4 addresses even harder than today, using
smaller and smaller address blocks per enterprise customer, and
possibly trading address blocks with other ISPs.
2. Install multiple layers of Network Address Translation (NAT)
[CGN] or share IPv4 addresses by other methods such as address-
plus-port mapping [APLUSP], [PRANGE].
3. Deploy IPv6 and operate IPv4-IPv6 coexistence and interworking
mechanisms.
This document focuses on alternative (3), while recognizing that many
ISPs may be obliged by circumstances to prolong the life of IPv4 by
using (1) or (2) while preparing for (3).
This document describes IPv6 deployment scenarios already adopted or
currently planned by a set of ISPs who responded to a technical
questionnaire. Thus, it is a factual record of the responses from
those ISPs. It makes no recommendations; the best choice of
scenarios will depend on the circumstances of individual ISPs.
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