IPv6 – What you need to know - Part 2

In Part 2 of our series we look at the advantages that IPv6 presents over IPv4. We also see how Internet Addresses are Managed Globally.

In Part 1 we discussed the rumored doomsday of the Internet (IPocalypse). The day when the Global Address Pool from which addresses have been dished out for years finally runs out. This day happens to be 3^rd February and I thought it unfair to go without mention. Emergency measures by the IANA (covered later in this article) have already kicked in and as I pointed out in Part 1, nothing has and will break on the Internet.

Albeit, I must say that now more than ever deployment and adoption of IPv6 must be given the highest priority.

Now, moving on, we examine the advantages that IPv6 presents over IPv4:-

More Address Space

The most touted reason for IPv6 as a replacement for IPv4 is the large number of Addresses. While IPv4 avails about 4 Billion Addresses (2³² ), IPv6, allows for 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456. (2¹²⁸ ) or simply – 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses. Far more than the number of stars in the galaxy!

The less spoken about reasons for the new Addressing standard are:-

Ease of Configuration

IPv6 comes with Plug-and-Play capabilities – meaning if enabled, Ipv6 can work on a network without much configuration.

Security

Since the Internet was a research project running off an isolated network, not much thought was given to security. The security mechanisms in IPv4 were retrofitted after the Internet started getting wider adoption and problems.

The security mechanisms that work with the Internet Protocol such as SSL or Secure Sockets Layer, IPSEC (Internet Protocol Security) to name two are optional in IPv4. Mandatory and coming as default in IPv6, these measures provide a certain level of security even without you making a conscious effort to be secure.

Mobility

If you have used an IP phone in a wireless environment before you know that this can be problematic. IPv4 lacks the mechanism to transfer Phone sessions from one Access Point (AP) to another. With the requisite Network Infrastructure, Version 6 is able to facilitate the move from one AP to another giving you the same pleasant experience you get from a Cellphone.

Scalability

When you send an email from Uganda, to say China, the Internet uses a routing table to calculate and store possible paths to your desired destination. The exponential growth of the Internet has meant growth of this table resulting into degraded network performance as Routers have to sift through hundreds of thousands of routes. Compared to IPv4, IPv6 mitigates this problem by allowing more similar routes to be grouped as one (Route Aggregation). This results into a performance boost for the internet infrastructure as a router takes a shorter time and less resource to make a routing decision.

Efficiency and Reliability

The last merit we cover here is the efficiency of Ipv6. IPv6 tremendously reduces the administrative load on a Network Administrator. Even with seemingly longer and stranger looking Addresses it is actually more efficient as each packet comes with sufficient information to help it get from source to destination without much consultation along the way.

I believe you can now agree that IPv6 is a well thought out Solution to the Addressing Problem. Moving on to the next part of this Article.

Global Address Management

Even with the fact that it is freely available, Information on IP Address Management still seems to elude many. I hope through this brief I can shade light on some of the questions I hear a lot on the subject of Ownership and Management of IP addresses. Brace yourself for herein acronyms and bureaucracy abound.

The Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit governs the Internet at the highest level and operates through independent organs one of which is the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

The IANA, oversees global allocation and management of IP addresses, and autonomous system numbers among others.

The IANA, holds the central pool of IP Addresses and allocates them to Regional Internet Registries or RIRs on a needs basis

There are five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) in the world serving different regions:-

• African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) for Africa and Parts of the Indian Ocean.
• American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) for the United States, Canada, and several parts of the Caribbean region.
• Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) for Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and neighboring countries
• Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre (LACNIC) for Latin America and parts of the Caribbean region

• RIPE NCC for Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia

Regional Internet Registries (RIRs)

First established in the 1990's, RIRs were setup by the communities to satisfy emerging technical and admin needs in the area of resource Administration.

RIRs work on the following principles:-

• Allocation and registration of IP addresses and related “Internet resources”
• Open policy process
• Fair Distribution of Internet Resources
• Technical services, training and education…
• No involvement in DNS registration!

RIR's allocate address space to Network Operators like ISP's who in turn assign these to their customers. These Addresses are distributed through policies that are developed by the community which include Network Operators, End Users, etc. Each one of the 5 Registries works in their area of jurisdiction and co-operates with other RIRs when called on.

To understand how Addresses are assigned, lets take an example – Your organization needs Publicly routable addresses. You have the option of contacting your Internet Service Provider directly. In this case, they assign you addresses they received from the RIR (AfriNIC - in our case) or you can go directly to the AfriNIC and acquire what is known as Provider Independent (PI) Addresses. PI Addresses can be maintained even after you switch service Provider.

Whether it is version 4 or version 6, There is a criteria used for allocating Publicly routable address space. The AfriNIc website (http://www.afrinic.net/policy.htm) is a good place to start if you plan on acquiring Public addresses

In our next issue we will wrap up this series by seeing what needs to be done for us to transition smoothly to IPv6 and who should take action.

Article First Published by Enterprise Technology - ictcreatives.com