Coexistence: Running IPv4 and IPv6 on One Network

Coexistence: Running IPv4 and IPv6 on One Network

Laura's Corner Coexistence: Running IPv4 and IPv6 on One Network Thanks for such a wonderful turnout to our June 2012 Name That Challenge, where we asked you to tell us your greatest challenge in transitioning to IPv6. Our winner, a resident of San Francisco, California, is from a major US bank. She told us that her greatest challenge in transitioning to IPv6 not knowing how the vendor for their support tool (still running in 32-bit mode) will support both IPv4 and IPv6 applications when performing TCP trace analysis for their applications. How Will Your Tools Handle the Migration? This is a question that each and every business should be investigating. Your business will have a migration path to IPv6 that will involve moving some parts of your IP networks to IPv6, forming what are being called IPv6 islands. For most of you who already have IPv4 addresses, the level of your need to move to IPv6 is based on the answer to these three questions: 1. Do you deliver your content to a client who ONLY has IPv6? 2. Are you developing new applications that require IPv6 functions? 3. Are your key partners mandating IPv6 connections? If your answer to these questions is no, the need to move your entire network to IPv6 is less urgent. Whether your answer is yes or no, however, your business will need to run both IPv4 and IPv6 in your networks for quite some time. This will require you to have tools capable of supporting both protocols and providing functions and analyses based on the differences in the protocols. Supporting the larger address space is just the tip of the iceberg. For many of you, the transition will involve running what is called dual stack (both the IPv4 and Ipv6 protocols together) in many IP devices. No one wants to have a different tool set for IPv6 and IPv4 content! AES has seamlessly integrated IPv6 into our tool set in order to support the evolving IP business network. Let's take a look at how our product implementations provide your business a safe and reliable transition to IPv6 in the following case study. Case Study One of our clients ran a trace using CleverView for cTrace Analysis to investigate an IPv4 problem. When they opened the trace, they were amazed to find IPv6 traffic on the network as shown below:

Packet ID 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8 are IPv6 packets. The ability to show both the IPv4 (32 bit dotted decimal) and IPv6 ( 128 bit colon hexadecimal) address types is a critical component in our product, but this address display alone was not enough to provide productivity information to the technical staff. This is why we also provide decoding of common port information, as shown in Packet ID 8. Windows ® 7 systems automatically start the IPv6 protocol stack. In the case of the client under discussion, the desktop support team did not disable IPv6 when desktop images were loaded, resulting in IPv6 traffic on their network. Do you know whether you have rogue IPv6 traffic on your network? We can further expand the productivity of the technical team by decoding IPv6-only functions. There is no better way to discover how IPv6 works than to look at the details in an IP packet trace. Many of you probably gained your expertise in IPv4 this way. You can use the same methods to gain knowledge of IPv6. In the figure below, note the different fields displayed for an IPv6 packet, like traffic class and flow label.

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Displaying the basic IPv6 packet information is important, but your tools need to provide complete functionality. CleverView for cTrace Analysis gives you the ability to query a packet trace and select specific items to view, which can also include a query using an IPv6 address. The image below shows the results when we queried for the packets going to FF02::C.

Note the protocol listed as 'HOPOPT'. As one of the many IPv6 functions, this will be new to many of you. Clicking on packet ID 406 yields the following packet details:



This client is now using CleverView for cTrace Analysis to learn about the changes in how IPv6 works compared to IPv4 and tracking rogue IPv6 implementations in their network. Conclusion As June's winning question points out, it is necessary for your tools to support both your IPv4 and IPv6 networks as a seamless network environment. It is not just a matter of supporting the larger address space from a visibility standpoint. It is also important to provide all the deep packet details by decoding the unique IPv6 functions. Although your technical team will have a lot on their hands as the integration of IPv6 evolves, their task will be far more manageable if they can use one set of tools across the IP network. If you missed one of Laura's most recent articles, click on one of the following links: Case Study: Application Migration in a Virtualized Environment Intelligent FTP Monitoring, Reporting, and Analysis

Laura Knapp Laura Knapp, AES Worldwide Business Consultant Click here to contact us and learn more about CLEVER Solutions
