6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Overview
On February 3, 2011, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the
international body responsible for distributing Internet addresses, completed its
final allocation of IPv4 addresses to each of the five Regional Internet Registries
(RIRs). While it will take some time for the RIRs to distribute the last remaining
IPv4 addresses to carriers, the date marks the end of an era for the Internet
and for Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), which has been the Internet’s main
communication protocol for over 20 years.
“This is a major turning point in the
on-going development of the Internet.
No one was caught off guard by this.
The Internet technical community has
been planning for IPv4 depletion for
some time. But it means the adoption of
IPv6 is now of paramount importance,
since it will allow the Internet to continue
its amazing growth and foster the global
innovation we’ve all come to expect.”
Rod Beckstrom
President and CEO
ICANN
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the next-generation Internet Protocol version
designated as the successor to IPv4. The move to IPv6 will allow the Internet –
and the global economy it supports – to continue to grow. From now on, network
innovation will be increasingly centered on IPv6 and strategic IT initiatives such
as cloud computing and virtualization will be built using the new protocol.
It is anticipated that the first RIR (APNIC) will run out of IPv4 addresses in
August 2011 with others soon to follow. The exhaustion of IPv4 address
space means that organizations can no longer afford to ignore IPv6. The new
protocol has already been adopted across many parts of the globe. To avoid
losing connectivity with the growing segment of Internet users – and potential
customers – who surf the Web over IPv6, organizations need to start transitioning
to IPv6 this year.
Organizations that delay will lose connectivity with the rest of the world and forfeit
their presence on the new Internet. They may also incur additional cost and risk
due to an aging infrastructure and lose competitive advantage due to an inability
to integrate new IPv6-only applications and services.
“Going forward, if you want to participate
in the full breadth of the Internet, then
the solution is to surf dual-stacked –
meaning your operating systems and
browsers need to be configured for both
IPv4 and IPv6.”
Silvia Hagen
“How to successfully access a
dual-stacked Internet”
TCP/IP World
January 5, 2011
The changeover to a pure IPv6 Internet will not happen overnight. IPv4 and IPv6
will coexist for many years. This means that organizations will need to support
both protocols in order to continue to connect with the full breadth of Internet
users. Because the transition will be gradual, it is expected that dual-stack
networks will become the standard for integrating existing IPv4 networks
with IPv6.
Unfortunately, IPv6 is not backwards compatible with IPv4 – IPv6 cannot speak
to IPv4 and vice versa. This lack of backwards compatibility will create significant
implementation, management and security challenges for organizations as they
adopt IPv6 alongside IPv4. Support for both protocols and their interoperability
will require a fundamental change in communication systems and network
management processes.
The transition to IPv6 will require smart, simple, scalable IP Address
Management (IPAM) solutions to help organizations adopt and manage IPv6
and dual-stack networks. The traditional methods of managing IP addresses with
spreadsheets and manual processes simply will not scale to accommodate IPv6.
In this paper, we will look at the benefits of adopting IPv6 sooner rather than later
and outline a pragmatic approach for IPv6 planning and readiness.We will also
look at the critical role of IP Address Management in easing the transition to IPv6
and simplifying the ongoing management of IPv6 and IPv4 environments. We will
demonstrate how IPAM provides a disciplined approach to preparing for IPv6.
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Background – Why IPv6, Why Now?
The IPv4 protocol dates from the 1970s, making it practically ancient in
technology terms. Designed to support the “killer apps” of its day including FTP
(1971), TELNET (1972), SMTP (1981) and HTTP (1991), IPv4 shows its age
when called upon to support today’s demanding applications.
IPv4 Exhaustion by the Numbers
4,294,967,296
(Total number of IPv4 addresses)
6,901,400,000
(Population of planet Earth)
IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses, which means there are a finite number of possible
unique IP addresses. With IPv4, address space is limited to about 4 billion
addresses. Like oil, IPv4 address space is a non-renewable resource: once IPv4
addresses are gone, they’re gone. Any new applications and services that have
not yet been allocated an IPv4 address will have to support IPv6.
Like many systems, the IPv4 addressing scheme was designed with rules that
made sense at the time. When IPv4 was first conceived almost 40 years ago,
no one could have predicted the phenomenal growth of the Web and IP-enabled
devices – or that we would quickly outgrow four billion addresses.
Reality of IPv4 Exhaustion
Free /8
160
IANA
RIR Pool + IANA
140
120
100
/8
80
60
40
20
0
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
Date
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipv4-exhaust.svg
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
IP Addresses are Strategic Assets
According to Gartner, the depletion of
IPv4 addresses means that IT managers
must now view IP addresses as
“financial and operational assets.”
“Internet Protocol Version 6: It’s Time for
[Limited] Action”
Gartner
8 December 2010
IPv4 exhaustion has come sooner than many expected, but we would have
depleted available IPv4 address space much earlier had it not been for network
address translation (NAT). NAT, a technology that reduces address consumption
by private networks, has been widely deployed since the mid-1990s as a
stopgap against IPv4 address exhaustion. With NAT, multiple hosts on a private
network can access the Internet using a single public IP address. But the dense
deployment of NAT has only delayed the inevitable.
NAT has also introduced complexity – diagnosing network problems through
NATs and gateways is significantly more difficult – and disrupted the end-toend connectivity that the Internet was initially designed to provide. While NAT
provided a temporary solution for prolonging IPv4, implementing NAT with IPv6
is not advisable as it would bring the same complexities and challenges forward
into the new IPv6 environment.
If we think of IP address space as fuel for the electronic age, IPv6 will provide
the massive reserves needed for the Internet to continue to run and grow. IPv6
uses 128-bit addresses, which greatly expands the pool of available unique IP
addresses. The total number of addresses available under IPv6 is more than 340
undecillion (undecillion = 1036) – which should be more than enough to last for
200-300 years. We shouldn’t have to worry about IPv6 exhaustion in
our lifetimes.
IPv6 2001:fecd:ba23:cd1f:dcb1:1010:9234:4088
IPv6 provides an extended IP address pool and flexibility
in allocating addresses.
IPv4 192.121.10.1
The first pools of IPv4 addresses will run out in Asia sometime
this year with IPv4 depletion in other regions soon to follow.
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
How many IP addresses are available
under IPv6?
340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,
431,768,211,465
That’s 340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366
nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion,
463 sextillion, 463 quintillion, 374
quadrillion, 607 trillion, 431 billion, 768
million, 211 thousand, 456 addresses.
Because IPv6 provides so many IP addresses, every IP-enabled device will be
able to have its own IP address to operate in public space. With features like
Global Unicast, the new protocol promises to enable a new generation of mobile
and embedded applications that are impossible today. Sensor networks and
RFID inventory tracking systems are just a couple of the many applications that
will benefit from IPv6.
But IPv6 is about more than just address space. The modern protocol features
many advancements including:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Address families
Extension headers
Jumbo frames
Neighborhood discovery
Path MTU discovery
Multicast improvements
Mobile IP address support
Simplified routing
Quality of Service (QoS)
Built-in IPSEC
Despite the reluctance of some organizations to begin implementing the new
protocol, there are many compelling reasons why IPv6 can’t come soon enough.
In a sense, IPv6 represents an Internet renaissance. The Internet was initially
designed as a peer-to-peer network. With its massively expanded address space,
IPv6 will help to restore the Internet’s seamless end-to-end connectivity that
was broken by NAT. By bypassing NAT, users of IPv6-enabled applications (an
IPv6-enabled Skype, for instance) will be able to connect directly to each other
without the need for a server or translation mechanism in the middle, increasing
performance, simplifying management and making true peer-to-peer
connectivity possible.
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Benefits of Implementing IPv6 Now
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), the North American
Regional Internet Registry, has issued a warning to all organizations that they
must support IPv6 traffic externally by January 1st, 2012. The Executive Office of
the President (Office of Management and Budget – OMB) has mandated that US
government agencies must support IPv6 for all public-facing services including
Web, email, DNS and ISP services by September 30, 2012.
The U.S. federal government
successfully deployed IPv6 capability
on all of its backbone networks in June
2008. However, federal agencies are not
yet using IPv6 in production mode.
While a few organizations have already started to plan for the transition to IPv6,
most still do not have a transition plan in place – and the clock is ticking. To
prepare for IPv6, Gartner recommends that organizations should:
• Conduct an inventory of IPv4 addresses and utilization
• Assess current IPv6 readiness
• Develop an IPv6 road map focused on communicating with external IPv6
endpoints
Source: “Internet Protocol Version 6: It’s Time for [Limited] Action,”
Gartner, 8 December 2010
China showcased its IPv6 network
infrastructure at the 2008 Olympic
Games in Beijing. Everything from
security systems to taxis to Olympic
Games events cameras were networked
using IPv6.
While it is true that today IPv6-only Internet traffic represents a small amount of
all Internet traffic, this is going to change rapidly now that IPv4 space is almost
depleted. IPv6 address allocation is on the rise and more widespread deployment
of IPv6 networks will soon follow. Once IPv6 has proven itself as a foundation
for the new Internet, it will pave the way for the rapid development of IPv6-only
applications and services.
The majority of Internet Service Providers understand that they will no longer be
able to receive the appropriate IPv4 space they need to service their customers
and have already begun to transition to IPv6.
Organizations shouldn’t wait until the last minute to start their IPv6 planning.
There are several advantages to getting IPv6-ready now by deploying dualstacked IPv4 and IPv6 networks:
Maintaining a global presence – Many parts of the world have already started
the migration to IPv6 – and chances are your current IPv4-based Web site is
inaccessible to users in these regions. Commercial deployment of IPv6 is furthest
along in Asia, where IPv4 addresses have been particularly scarce. If your
business extends to emerging markets, you must consider IPv6 now for services
such as your corporate Web site and email applications to avoid losing market
share and connectivity with the rest of the world.
Staying ahead of the competition – Organizations don’t want to miss out
on business opportunities from IPv6-enabled customers and end-users. As
IPv6 traffic grows, your must ensure that your Web site and other public and
customer-facing services are IPv6-enabled to ensure that you capture as much
of your target audience as possible. If your products and services are accessible
via IPv6 and your competitor’s are not, this represents a significant
competitive advantage.
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Did You Know?
IBM introduced the first commercial
IPv6-compatible product in
1997 – AIX 4.3.
The IPv6 protocol was fully ratified in
1998.
Reducing risk and costs during the transition to IPv6 – New applications may
require many more IP addresses or the removal of NAT to function properly.
Smart grids and sensor networks, for instance, require more than one million IP
addresses. Transitioning to IPv6 removes the obstacle of lack of IPv4 addresses
and opens up new opportunities to leverage the next “killer apps.” If you ignore
IPv6 and continue to add more IPv4 address space to your current network or
rely on a denser deployment of NAT to stretch your available IPv4 assets, you
may face a much more difficult and costly IPv6 migration effort later on. NAT
and other strategies to prolong the use of IPv4 are only stopgap measures,
not permanent solutions. Planning for IPv6 in tandem with your other ongoing
IT projects will allow you to align IPv6 with your technology lifecycle – e.g. the
rollout of new hardware – in order to reduce costs and risk.
IPv6 Adoption Challenges
IPv6 – Ready or Not?
For a list of products, services and
applications with IPv6 support
visit: http://www.ipv6-to-standard.org/
Organizations shouldn’t underestimate the amount of time and effort required to
adopt IPv6. The design, implementation and configuration of dual-stack systems,
which support both IPv4 and IPv6, will be a complex process, involving significant
changes to current communication systems and management processes.
As with any large-scale technology initiative, thorough planning is required to
avoid delays and business disruption. The goal is to make the transition to IPv6
as smooth and seamless as possible for end users and customers.
Below are some of the challenges organizations will face in transitioning to IPv6:
Hardware and software upgrades or replacement – All IP-enabled components
will need to be evaluated to ensure they support IPv6. This includes operating
systems, routers, switches, firewalls, software applications and devices like
printers and fax machines. For example, Windows 7 and Mac OS X support IPv6
out of the box, but older operating systems like Windows XP do not. Affected
IP-aware devices and products may need to be updated with new firmware or
replaced with IPv6-ready components.
Can you remember this IPv6
Address?
2001:fecd:ba23:cd1f:d
cb1:1010:9234:4088
Length of IPv6 addresses – IPv6 addresses are 128-bits long and are
represented in hexadecimal, a format that is not human-friendly. For IT staff and
network administrators accustomed to memorizing IP addresses, the length of
IPv6 addresses will be a major challenge. To use an analogy, memorizing an
IPv4 address is similar to remembering your license plate number; memorizing
an IPv6 address is more like having to remember your vehicle’s VIN number.
In addition to address length, IPv6 networks and notation will not be as easy to
manipulate, which may lead to assignment errors and management headaches.
With IPv6, people will rely more heavily on DNS to map between something
they can remember and the actual IP address. But while DNS alleviates many of
these issues, network administrators often need to know the actual IP address to
troubleshoot issues. An IP Address Management (IPAM) solution will
be mandatory.
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Resilient DNS and DHCP core services will also be needed to provide IPv6
naming and addressing. DHCP6 will be the preferred method for IPv6 address
allocation.
Multiple IPv6 addresses per interface – Another management consideration is
the number of possible IPv6 addresses per interface. Not counting any multicast
addresses, three to four IPv6 addresses may be required per IPv6 interface.
•
•
•
•
What Happened to IPv5?
IP version 5 could not be considered
as the designation for the successor
to IPv4 because version 5 had been
already been allocated to the Internet
Stream Protocol, an experimental
protocol developed in the 1980s but
never widely deployed.
Global Unicast – unique public address
Local unique private IP address – unique private Unicast address
Local link address – never routed and kept on the shared network
The loopback address – where ::1 is equivalent to IPv4 127.0.0.1
Size of IPv6 address space – The total number of addresses available under
IPv6 is more than 340 undecillion (undecillion = 1036). With a huge range of
IP6 addresses at their disposal and an ever-increasing number of IP-enabled
devices, IT staff and network administrators may need to keep track of thousands
or even millions of IPv6 addresses. With such an enormous address pool, IPv6
simply cannot be tracked on a spreadsheet – finding a specific address in a
seemingly endless list of IPv6 addresses in Excel would be like finding a needle
in a haystack. Everyday tasks such as determining the next available network will
become anything but trivial.
While making the move to dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 networks will not be easy,
organizations that start planning now and that implement key enabling
technologies such as IP Address Management will be better equipped to
successfully manage the transition. Below we’ll briefly discuss why dual-stacked
networks are the preferred transition mechanism for IPv6 and then outline the
steps organizations need to take to ensure IPv6 readiness.
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Dual-Stack IPv4/IPv6 Environments
Eventually, the Internet will run entirely on IPv6 and IPv4 will become another
legacy technology, but the transition to a pure IPv6 Internet won’t happen for
many years. In the interim, it is expected that organizations will run their externalfacing systems in dual-stack mode. Dual-stacking allows IPv4 applications and
devices to coexist with upgraded IPv6-capable applications and devices on the
same network. IP-enabled devices have the ability to use either
IP protocol version.
In a dual-stack environment, IPv6 is deployed in conjunction with an
organization’s existing IPv4 network to support both protocols. Dual-stack
environments require the deployment of IPv4 and IPv6 capable hosts and
network infrastructure. To operate successfully, the organization’s current IPv4
network infrastructure must have an equivalent capability in IPv6 – dual stacking
may fail if an organization does not have enough IPv4 addresses.
Dual IP Layer
Application Layer
TCP/UDP
IPv6
IPv4
Network Interface Layer
Dual-stack implementations require simultaneous support for IPv4 and IPv6 links,
DNS and DHCP – and parallel management of the entire IP and name space. An
IPAM solution with tightly integrated DNS and DHCP is required to ensure that,
when a network administrator changes an IPv6 address associated with an AAAA
DNS record, the change is updated in both DNS and in the IPv6 space, removing
the need to manually update multiple areas.
While there are several different IPv6 transition approaches available to
organizations that will allow IPv4 and IPv6 to coexist, dual stack environments
are generally regarded as the most flexible option.
Dual stack is preferable to transition mechanisms such as 6to4 that enable
IPv6 packets to be transmitted over an IPv4 network. Relay servers allow 6to4
networks to communicate with native IPv6 networks. 6to4 is intended to be used
only during the initial stages of IPv6 deployment and is not meant to be deployed
as a permanent solution. 6to4 and other tunneling and translation methods
deployed by ISPs also prevent organizations from capturing valuable metrics
on network traffic – the kind of identity and analytic data that your marketing
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
and sales departments rely on to understand their customers and guide their
campaigns and sales efforts.
In contrast to dual-stacking, the use of tunnels and protocol translators obscures
network visibility, constrains the use of IP addressing and may cause problems
with NAT. Organizations need network visibility to pinpoint security gaps and
vulnerabilities – this is particularly important in a dual stack environment where a
system may be attacked using IPv4, IPv6 or any combination of the two.
Due to the limitations of tunneling and translation mechanisms, dual-stack
networks are expected to be the norm for supporting both IPv4 and IPv6. But
how do you manage your IPv4 and IPv6 address space effectively in parallel?
And what about minimizing administrative effort and increasing visibility in a
dual-stack environment? This is where IP Address Management comes in as an
essential IPv6 transition solution.
IPAM – A Key IPv6 Transition and
Management Technology
The traditional methods of managing IP addresses with spreadsheets and by
memory, which were onerous and inefficient enough with IPv4, are simply no
longer viable with IPv6.
An IP Address Management (IPAM) solution will be essential in order to quickly
and easily discover existing IPv4/IPv6 space, model new IPv6 networks and
track dual-stacked IPv4/IPv6 systems. Not only will IPAM play a critical role
in the early planning phases of your IPv6 readiness initiative, but it will also
dramatically simplify the ongoing management of pure IPv6 and dual-stack IPv4/
IPv6 environments.
IPAM solutions offer capabilities for controlling, automating and managing
an organization’s domain name and address space. By delivering intelligent
automation and single-pane-of-glass visibility, these tools simplify management
and save time and resources. IPAM solutions integrate DNS and DHCP, offering
significant advantages over spreadsheets, manual processes and homegrown IP
address management applications.
In this section, we’ll outline how IPAM can provide a disciplined approach to
preparing for IPv6, enabling organizations to plan their IPv6 transition in six
manageable phases.
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
1. Discover
A successful implementation of IPv6 will require accurate knowledge of your
current IPv4 network landscape. The data you need to understand what you have
today for IPv4 resides in spreadsheets, DHCP, DNS and other sources. The first
step is to discover and take inventory of your network resources and IP space.
In this phase, you will document your existing IPv4 network and evaluate your
equipment to understand your existing IPv6 capabilities:
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Discover and inventory IPv4 and IPv6-enabled devices on your network
Track existing IPv4 networks and hosts
Determine what IPv6 capabilities are required
Evaluate the IPv6 capabilities of your host or Internet Service Provider (ISP
Conduct a detailed assessment of software and operating systems:
-- Identify systems that currently comply with IPv6 requirements
-- Identify systems that must be upgraded to meet IPv6 requirements
-- Identify systems that must be replaced to meet IPv6 requirements
• Conduct a detailed assessment of hardware components and devices:
-- Understand what equipment and components may need to be
upgraded or replaced
• Conduct a detailed assessment of your existing DNS infrastructure, servers
and software including BIND
• Conduct a detailed assessment of your existing DHCP infrastructure, which
may be used to assign and configure IPv6 addresses
An IPAM solution will allow you to quickly and easily obtain an accurate and upto-date picture of the state of your IPv4 network using automated IP discovery
and reconciliation. Because the IPv6 transition will take time to roll out, the IPAM
solution will also keep your view current and up-to-date as devices are added or
removed from the network.
2. Plan
Following the IPAM discovery stage, you will be equipped with the information
and insight you need to begin to plan how your IPv6 network will be deployed. As
with all large-scale IT deployments, planning will involve the following tasks:
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Create a high-level implementation plan
Create detailed IPv6 Requirements Specification
Create detailed test plans
Issue vendor RFIs
Acquire IPv6 address space
Perform compliance and interoperability testing
Perform regression testing
Make vendor or software selections
Create low-level implementation plan and risk analysis
Create a training and knowledge transfer plan
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
During the planning phase, you will determine which systems will be modified
to support dual-stack operation first, set realistic transition timelines, roadmaps
and milestones. In most cases, the transition will start on the outside with an
organization’s external services (www, DNS, email, etc.). It is not necessary or
advisable to transition all of your services – in fact, you may have insufficient
IPv4 address capacity to do so, since you will need equivalent IPv4 and IPv6
capacity. Aligning your IPv6 implementation roadmap with your technology
lifecycle and deploying IPv6 capabilities incrementally in conjunction with
scheduled technology refreshes will help contain costs and reduce
redundant effort.
Governance and project management will play a critical role in a successful
transition. You will need to clearly identify roles and responsibilities within a clear
management structure.
An IPAM solution will help organizations effectively plan and create their IPv6
networks by making it easier to:
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Track IPv6 networks
Manage IPv6 network boundaries
Track dynamic IPv6 assignments (SLAAC and DHCP)
Represent your IPv6 network in business logic
Because IPv6 is a relatively new technology, you may lack the skilled resources
internally that are needed to develop a sound plan. Your IPAM solution provider
will also be of assistance in the planning phase, sharing industry best practices
and lessons learned from earlier and ongoing deployments.
3. Model
Next you will model your dual stack or IPv6 network to determine optimal design.
This phase will involve analysis to determine the impact of adding routers and
interfaces, adding or moving prefixes, and so on. An accurate and detailed IPv6
network model and topology will enable you visualize your IPv6-capable network
before implementation in order avoid unanticipated issues and delays.
When modeling your dual stack network, your IPv6 address concept should take
the following elements into account:
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Prefix aggregation
Subnet consistency
Use of address types (ULA/GU)
Use of address allocation mechanisms (DHCPv6, SLAAC, IPAM)
Security aspects and policies
Operational aspects such as optimization of filtering rules to ensure performance
Network growth
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Organizations should set up a test lab to evaluate their dual-stack and IPv6
capabilities in a controlled environment. This will allow your IT staff and network
administrators to gain valuable experience with IPv6. At this stage, you will
identify existing bottlenecks in your network caused by NAT and gateways to see
if IPv6 can remove performance obstacles and complexities. You will also want
to capture information on latency, scale and other variables to compare your IPv4
and IPv6 capabilities and ensure equivalent performance.
An IPAM solution will enable you to model out your environment, recreate your
proposed address allocation and create various setup scenarios to determine
best fit. IPAM also provides additional tools to map business logic to IP data.
For example, you may want to model your address space based on location,
department or service type and allocate your IPv6 space accordingly. IPv6
provides an opportunity for your organization to plan properly in order to
reorganize and simplify your network infrastructure based on your unique
business needs. IPAM provides a powerful, business-centric tool for visualizing
and modeling the new network infrastructure.
4. Map
At this stage, you will map your existing IPv4 network to your IPv6 space. The
management of dual-stack devices that support both IPv4 and IPv6 will need
a solution for mapping IPv4 devices to their IPv6 addresses and vice versa. To
perform this mapping, organizations will need IP Address Management. An IPAM
solution will allow you to accurately visualize how you can integrate your current
IPv4 network and devices into your proposed IPv6 space.
To effectively track dual-stacked hosts, you will need a common entity between
them that will allow you to map both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to one object. The
most common methods for tracking dual-stacked hosts are likely to be by MAC
address and DNS hostname. MAC addresses can be captured manually or by
using DHCP or network discovery tools available in an IPAM solution.
An IPAM solution will enable you to map IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to a single
system for unified tracking. Mapping does not need to be one-to-one. As
mentioned above, organizations have an opportunity to change their addressing
schemes if their current scheme does not work today.
5. Implement
The implementation phase will involve updating, refreshing or replacing all
affected IP-aware devices or products and adding new hardware components as
needed to support running dual stack. Organizations will need to deploy IPv6capable DNS and DHCP core services and IPv6-capable network equipment
(routers, switches, etc.). An IPAM solution will enable you to configure IP blocks
and networks more quickly and with less manual effort. Once the IP blocks and
networks have been configured, there will no longer be any need to handle the
actual IPv6 addresses. Configurations should depend on DNS names rather
than hard-coded IP addresses to avoid management challenges down the road.
Security policies, systems and solutions may need to be modified for IPv6 and
will require additional attention to address vulnerabilities.
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6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
6. Manage
Once your dual-stack network has been implemented, you will need a solution
for managing your IPv4 and IPv6 networks in parallel. IPv6 will require effective
management of IP addresses in layers – different layers due to dual stack and
also different layers within IPv6. Address allocation patterns will be sparse
with IPv6 and will require more automated tracking. Effective management
will also require DHCP6 for IPv6 address allocation. An IPAM solution with
integrated DNS and DHCP will simplify ongoing management of your dualstack environment and reduce the time and effort required to perform common
administrative tasks. IPAM will also provide visibility across your IPv4 and IPv6
environment, which will prove invaluable for troubleshooting, compliance
and security.
IPv6 Implemenatation Phases
The chart below outlines the six phases of IPv6 adoption and provides an
overview of the key IP Address Management capabilities that support each
phase. IPAM brings a structured, best practice approach to your IPv6 adoption
plan. IPAM also insulates your network administrators from the complexity of
defining and allocating IPv6 blocks, networks and addresses.
Phase
IPAM Capability
Description
Discover
IPv4 and IPv6
discovery
Automated tool to build out
block and network structure
based on discovery results
Leverage non-intrusive
firewall-friendly SNMP
discovery
Discover mixed environments
running both IPv4 and IPv6
routers
Track stateless IP address
usage directly from routers
Discover devices by MAC
address and track MAC to IP
relationship
Plan
Determine what systems will
support dual stack
Leverage IPAM solution
provider expertise and
experience
Model
Model your IPv6 space to
determine optimal design
Compare IPv4 and IPv6
capabilities and current/future
capacity
BlueCat Networks
www.bluecatnetworks.com
14
6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Phase
IPAM Capability
Description
Model Cont.
Create and add IPv6 blocks
Create IPv6 block for unique
local address space (/8 to /128)
Create IPv6 block for Global
Unicast address space (/3
to /128)
By MAC address
Create, auto-create IPv6 and
add Networks
Create /64 to /128 networks
Automatically create networks
when creating IPv6 hosts
from DNS
Conform to CIDR boundaries
Get next available IPv6
network by prefix
Automatically allocate an IPv6
address based on a
network prefix
Migration of IPv6
Import foreign data in XML
format. If the data is not ready
for XML, convert various data
structures to XML.Massage
and cleanse the data before
converting to XML
API support
Add and get IPv6 blocks and
networks via Web
services API
Add, get, assign, assign and
clear IPv6 addresses
Map
Map IPv4 devices to IPv6
addresses
Identify the association of
IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to
a device based on a MAC
address and host name (DNS
name) or an IPAM
specified device
Map IP addresses to names
Provide a single source
for all name and address
information
Implement
IPv6 DNS and DHCP
management
Support for AAAA and the
IP6. ARPA reverse space
Ability to assign addresses for
both v4 and v6
Dynamic DNS (DDNS)
support
DNSSEC support
BlueCat Networks
www.bluecatnetworks.com
15
6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Phase
IPAM Capability
Description
Implement Cont.
IP reconciliation
Leverage discovery to
reconcile actual IP usage on
the network with your IPAM
system to ensure up-to-date
and accurate IP and
network information
Reclaim unused IP space
and discover new or unknown
systems
Manage
Simplify ongoing IPv4 and
IPv6 address management
Ability to track both IPv4
and IPv6
End-to-end IPv6 Address
Management including routing
prefixes for global Unicast,
subnet IDs and interface IDs
Object tagging allows you to
group your data so that it fits
your business model, based
on user-defined fields to
provide a meta-data system
for objects within the system
in virtually any way you
can imagine
Aggregate information for
troubleshooting, compliance
auditing and security
monitoring purposes
Manage IPv6 DNS – including
AAAA and the IP6.ARPA
reverse space
DHCP Integration – allocate
stateful IP addresses through
DHCP server integration
Track dynamic DHCP leases
and dynamic DNS data
BlueCat Networks
www.bluecatnetworks.com
16
6 Steps to IPv6 Readiness
A Practical Approach to Adopting IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM)
Summing Up
World IPv6 Day
On June 8, 2011, World IPv6 Day will
provide a global field trial of IPv6 and
organizations’ readiness to support it.
To get involved, visit www.isoc.org.
IPv6 is inevitable. The question is not whether you need to support IPv6, but how
soon. Already there are entire geographies that are IPv6-only. All organizations
need to begin transitioning their Web servers and email servers to IPv6 or dual
stack this year to avoid losing global connectivity. There are significant costs and
risks associated with taking a “wait and see” attitude toward IPv6 readiness.
The good news is that transition to IPv6 is not, as some would have you believe,
the latest “IPocalypse.” With careful planning and management, organizations
can ensure a smooth and seamless transition.
Not only will IPv6 require a significant overhaul to existing infrastructure, it
will also require a new approach to how IP address space and name space is
managed. An IPAM solution will simplify the transition to IPv6 and make it much
easier and more cost-effective to manage dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 and pure
IPv6 environments.
An IPAM solution will help your organization realize the many benefits of IPv6,
while ensuring uninterrupted connectivity for both IPv6 and IPv4 users. IPAM is
a key IPv6 transition technology that will help you ensure that it’s “business as
usual” on the new Internet.
17
About BlueCat Networks
BlueCat Networks is the Leader in IP Address Management (IPAM), DNS,
DNSSEC and DHCP Core Services including the centralized management of
Microsoft Windows® DNS/DHCP services. Available in software (VMware),
hardware (appliance) and Managed Service (Proteus Cloud Services)
deployment options, BlueCat Networks has been implemented by a large
number of Global Fortune 1000 companies and many classified and unclassified
government agencies. With the exponential growth in IP addresses, BlueCat
Networks solves critical network management issues by centrally managing,
controlling, tracking and auditing IPv4, IPv6, DNS and DNSSEC networks.
BlueCat Networks’ award-winning solutions provide unparalleled network uptime
and scale for medium to large organizations.
www.bluecatnetworks.com
Americas
Worldwide Headquarters
Toronto, Canada
Phone: +1.416.646.8400
Toll Free: +1.866.895.6931
Europe Amsterdam
Netherlands
Phone:+31.20.3200.490
Asia Pacific
Marina Bay, Singapore
Phone:+65.6832.5124
Visit www.bluecatnetworks.com for a complete list of offices.
© 2011. BlueCat Networks, the BlueCat Networks logo, the Proteus logo, IPAM Appliance, the Adonis logo, Adonis are trademarks of BlueCat
Networks, Inc. Microsoft, Windows, and Active Directory are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Any product photos shown are for
reference only and are subject to change without notice. All other product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective holders. Printed in Canada.