Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

The original title: "the era of" IPv6+ "has come. Don't you know what IPv6 is? "

In November 2017, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Action Plan for promoting the scale deployment of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

In April 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched a special action for the in-depth implementation of the action plan.

In July 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Office of the Central Cyber Security and Information Technology Commission issued the Special Action Plan for IPv6 Traffic Enhancement for three years (2021-2023).

Not only the deployment of action plans, but also the continuous arrangement of special actions, IPv6 so much attention to the country, why?

To figure this out, you need to understand what IP is.

What is the IPv6 Internet Protocol IP (Internet Protocol) mainly defines how data is transmitted in interconnected networks. Every device in the network, such as a computer, needs an identity like a house number-the familiar IP address-in order to communicate with other devices.

At present, the widely used IP protocol is IPv4 (IP Version 4), and the address used by network devices is the IPv4 address.

The length of the IPv4 address is 32 bit, so the maximum number of addresses that can be provided is 2 to the 32 (about 4.3 billion) addresses. However, except for some reserved addresses and private addresses for broadcasting, testing and private networks, the actual available addresses are less than 4.3 billion.

With the development of the Internet for so many years, IPv4 addresses have been assigned and used. On November 25, 2019, the European Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC), which is responsible for the allocation of Internet resources in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, announced that all 4.3 billion IPv4 addresses worldwide had been allocated.

As the 5G application of the Internet of everything becomes more and more mature, the requirements and functions of the network are becoming more and more complex.

In addition to facing the problem of address exhaustion, the shortcomings and limitations of IPv4 network are becoming more and more obvious.

Therefore, whether countries, industries or individuals, there is an urgent need for IPv6 (IP Version 6) and support promotion:

The major countries and economies in the world are striving to complete the construction of the IPv6 network as soon as possible, and strive for the first application of the network and the leading technology (such as the action plan and special action mentioned at the beginning).

A large number of mobile terminals, fixed devices, application websites and App in the market have supported IPv4 and IPv6 protocols.

With the popularity of smart home, families and individuals have many smart devices. The end-to-end management of these devices needs the support of IPv6 technology.

The advantage of IPv6 the primary purpose of IPv6 technology is to solve the problem of address shortage. The length of the IPv6 address is 128bit, and the maximum number of addresses that can be provided is 2 to the 128th power, which is 96 times more than the IPv4 address. This number is unimaginably large, and a vivid analogy is that IPv6 can assign an address to almost every grain of sand on the planet.

A 128bit IPv6 address is longer than an IPv4 address. In order to make it easy to remember and use, IPv6 addresses are usually written in eight groups, each in the format of four hexadecimal numbers, separated by colons, which is the hexadecimal representation.

For example, a valid IPv6 address is expressed as follows:

IPv6 address not only brings a large number of address resources, but also makes a comprehensive improvement to the "shortcomings" of IPv4.

01, smaller routing tabl

02. More flexible headers

03. Simpler network

04. Better mobility support

In addition to these advantages, IPv6 also enhances the functions of security, automatic address configuration, multicast and flow control, and provides more support for SDN / NFV applications.

The development status of IPv6 is much better than that of IPv4,IPv6. But thoughtful friends will certainly have this question: since IPv6 is so good, why it has not been used on a large scale since the agreement was proposed and developed for so many years?

This is because the upgrading of technology is never so easy. On the one hand, the application of NAT (Network Address Translation) technology slows down the speed of IPv4 address exhaustion. Through address translation, NAT can make multiple devices share an IP address to access the Internet, saving part of the address resources.

On the other hand, the cost of upgrading the network to IPv6 is huge. The upgrade from IPv4 to IPv6 is not just about changing the address, but also involves all aspects of the network. From personal terminals to operator networks, from a variety of application software to website services, all need to be comprehensively renovated and upgraded.

For this reason, the upgrade from IPv4 to IPv6 is not completed at once, but needs to be carried out step by step and level by level. During the transition period, in order to ensure the coexistence and interoperability of IPv4 and IPv6, some transition technologies have emerged.

Dual-stack technology (Dual Stack) when IPv4 and IPv6 networks exist at the same time, through the equipment with dual-stack function, combined with tunneling and conversion technology, the interworking between IPv4 network and IPv6 network is realized, which represents the technology DS-Lite.

Protocol conversion technology (NAT) when IPv4 network nodes or IPv6 network nodes want to communicate with each other, they need to convert the messages of IPv4 and IPv6 with the help of protocol conversion technology before they can communicate with each other, which represents the technology NAT64.

Tunnel technology (Tunnel) in the initial stage of the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, a large number of IPv4 networks have been deployed, while IPv6 networks are only "isolated islands" scattered everywhere. Tunnel technology enables IPv6 messages to be transmitted in IPv4 networks and realizes the island interconnection between IPv6 networks.

Representative technologies: 6PE, 6VPE, GRE, 6to4, etc.

Although IPv6 faces many difficulties in the future, the powerful and perfect functions of IPv6 technology and the great demand for network performance in 5G era are promoting the steady evolution of IPv4 network to IPv6 network.

With the gradual construction of 5G network, our country has ushered in rapid development in new fields such as Internet of things, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and so on. Then a high-speed, reliable and secure IPv6 network that can not only provide massive address resources but also solve the defects of IPv4 network is undoubtedly the best choice.

In recent years, the next generation Internet technology innovation system based on IPv6, "IPv6+", has also attracted wide attention. "IPv6+" is the upgrade of IPv6 and the IP network innovation system for 5G and cloud era.

"IPv6+" includes not only the protocol innovation represented by SRv6, network slicing, current detection, BIERv6 and APN6, and the technological innovation represented by network intelligence such as network analysis and automatic tuning, but also the business innovation with 5G bearer and cloud-network convergence as the key application scenario.

During the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, IPv6 + technology was also applied in large-scale events for the first time.

The time has come for IPv6 and "IPv6+". Are you ready?!

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ZTE documents (ID:ztedoc)

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