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Chapter 1. The Case for IPv6An Updated PerspectiveIt is not only accepted but almost expected that an IPv6 book will try, often hard, to persuade the reader of IPv6's importance and benefits. Countless pages have been written describing business models that would financially justify the deployment of IPv6. Sometimes innovative, other times controversial, the job of selling IPv6 has its role in challenging today's tactical approach to planning network-related capital expenditures. But despite all these efforts, it might just be that the accelerated depletion of the IPv4 address space will remain the trigger for a massive upgrade of existing networks to IPv6. The authors decided to steer clear of selling IPv6, and to avoid providing business models for IPv6 services. Instead, we intend to present to the reader the IPv6's value through technical arguments. We intend to provide a realistic perspective of IPv6, revealing its positives and negatives. This exercise, however, cannot be performed in absolute terms. For this reason, "the case for IPv6" is presented relative to the familiar frame of reference called IPv4. This approach is not original. It is in fact the title of an Internet Architecture Board (IAB) document (http://www.6bone.net/misc/case-for-ipv6.html). Some things have changed since that document was completed, so "an updated perspective" is seen as useful. A deployment perspective is maintained while discussing the various IPv6 topics throughout the book. The technology is presented in the context of each network service layer:
This chapter follows the same structure. Each service is briefly reviewed in the context of the IPv4 world. The protocol limitations and deployment issues are singled out along with pointers to IPv6 solutions or improvements, with further pointers to the chapters of this book where these topics are detailed. This chapter prepares the reader for an IPv6 discussion with the help of this overview of today's IPv4 services. |
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