Building the New Internet-1: 6to4 Optimization Technique for Native IPv6 Sites

Spence, John (2005) Building the New Internet-1: 6to4 Optimization Technique for Native IPv6 Sites.

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Abstract

This paper discusses the merits, and provides a HOW-TO, for implementing a managed enterprise site as both a native IPv6-connected site (where nodes within the site use addresses within the 2001::/16 prefix) and a 6to4 site concurrently (nodes also have addresses with a 2002::/16 6to4 prefix). A site optimized in this manner will be called a "6to4-optimized" site. There are two primary drivers for giving a site that already has "native" IPv6 connectivity 6to4 capability: Two sites that both have 6to4 capability build a very efficient IPv6-in-IPv4 tunnel directly between their border routers, and take advantage of the efficient paths and low-latency characteristics of the IPv4 Internet. Direct tunneling between these sites eliminates the use of 6to4 relays, which is particularly desirable in the near term as few 6to4 relays are deployed today. The sparseness of the current constellation of 6to4 relays creates the potential for inefficient paths and high-latency transit from the IPv6 site to the 6to4 relays (within the IPv6 Internet topology), then from the 6to4 relay to the 6to4-only site (within the IPv4 Internet topology) These two benefits will improve performance and reliability for 6to4-optimized sites, and for 6to4-only sites that communicate with 6to4-optimized sites. Furthermore, this solution provides a means for the 6to4-optimized site to avoid use of the 6to4 relays entirely, which are designed for use in unmanaged networks (such as a home network), but are unsuitable for enterprise deployment. This paper touches only briefly on using 6to4 to interconnect a known set of 6to4 sites across the public IPv4 Internet (creating an IPv6 extranet of sorts). Rather, the focus is placed more narrowly on the more general case where the 6to4-optimized site is striving to improve service for any 6to4 site on the Internet seeking to exchange traffic with the optimized site, or for which internal users of the optimized site are using resources located at a distant 6to4 site. The paper first provides a review of the 6to4 transition mechanism.

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