Welcome to the ITFreeTraining video on transitioning to IPv6.
Currently, it is estimated that just under 20 percent of the internet is IPv6 ready,
meaning the end user has little option but to use IPv4.
When there is no IPv6 native protocol between you and your destination, there are some transition
technologies available that may be able to bridge the gap.
In future videos I will look at some of the many transition technologies available.
This video will give you a basic understanding of how these transition technologies work.
Consider the following.
You have a desktop computer that is connected to an IPv4 network.
This computer wants to communicate with a computer that is located on an IPv6 only network.
Once the computer works out what data it wants to send, the next step is to work out how
to send it.
Since the destination network is IPv6, the data will be placed in an IPv6 packet.
The next problem is the computer will not be able to send the packet because it is on
an IPv4 only network.
To get around this problem, the next step is to place the IPv6 packet into an IPv4 packet.
This will allow the IPv6 packet to travel over the IPv4 network.
However, the next problem is, the IPv4 network will not know how to route the packet to the
IPv6 network.
To get around this, many of the transition technologies will create a tunnel over the
IPv4 network.
This will allow the IPv4 packet to be routed to the IPv6 network.
When the IPv4 packet reaches the IPv6 network, it cannot be routed on the IPv6 network.
So the IPv4 packet is removed to leave the IPv6 packet.
The IPv6 packet will be routed like any other IPv6 packet to its destination.
Once it arrives at the destination, the data packet can be used by the destination computer.
This is a common way transition technology works, however different transition technology
can be used depending on what network infrastructure you have.
Let’s consider a different example.
Consider that your company has two networks that are using IPv6 at different geographical
different sites.
If a computer on each network wants to communicate with each other the problem is that the internet
between the two computers is still mostly IPv4.
Thus there is no common protocol between the two networks.
In order for the two computers to communicate, a tunnel is established between the two sites.
Now, for the two computers to communicate, the computer sends an IPv6 packet over the
network.
When it reaches a router connected to both the IPv6 and IPv4 network, the packet is placed
in an IPv4 packet and sent over a tunnel.
Once the IPv4 packet gets to the end of the tunnel, the IPv4 packet is removed and the
IPv6 packet is sent to the destination.
Not all IPv6 transition technologies require a tunnel, however.
In later videos, we will see that some transition technologies use servers to bridge traffic
between different networks.
The good news is that on newer operating systems you can configure IPv4 or IPv6 or both.
Configuring both is referred to as a dual stack.
This includes Windows, Linux and mobile devices.
Newer operating systems will attempt to use IPv6 first and then, if this is not available,
use IPv4.
Routers can be configured to use both.
IPv6 packets are different from IPv4 packets, so configuring both will not affect your existing
network or devices on those networks.
This allows the administrator to deploy IPv6 as quickly or slowly as they wish, without
effecting existing services.
I hope you have found this video from ITFreeTraining helpful.
In the next video, I will take a closer look at what IPv6 transition technologies are available
and how to configure these transition technologies.
Until then, thanks for watching.