Overview of Functionality
IPv6 is one of the most significant network and technology upgrades in history. It will slowly grow into your existing IPv4 infrastructure and positively impact your network. Reading this book will prepare you for the next step of networking technology evolution. IPv6 product development and implementation efforts are already underway all over the world. IPv6 is designed as an evolutionary step from IPv4. It is a natural increment to IPv4, can be installed as a normal software upgrade in most Internet devices, and is interoperable with the current IPv4. IPv6 is designed to run well on high performance networks like Gigabit Ethernet, ATM, and others, as well as low bandwidth networks (e.g., wireless). In addition, it provides a platform for new Internet functionality that will be required in the near future, such as extended addressing, better security, and quality of service (QoS) features.
IPv6 includes transition and interoperability mechanisms that are designed to allow users to adopt and deploy IPv6 step by step as needed and to provide direct interoperability between IPv4 and IPv6 hosts. The transition to a new version of the Internet Protocol (IP) must be incremental, with few or no critical interdependencies, if it is to succeed. The IPv6 transition allows users to upgrade their hosts to IPv6 and network operators to deploy IPv6 in routers with very little coordination between the two groups.
The main changes from IPv4 to IPv6 can be summarized ...