Migrating to IPv6

Book excerpt: Understand IPv6, the protocol essential to future Internet growth. Exhaustion of address space and global routing table growth necessitate important revisions to the current version of the Internet Protocol, IPv4. IP version 6 offers greater address space and additional features to support the evolving requirements of Internet applications. Deployed alongside current IPv4 networks, IPv6 will restore the full-fledge network necessary for Internet growth. Migrating to IPv6 gives a comprehensive overview of IPv6 and related protocols, the layers below IPv6 to the application and end-user layers. Author Marc Blanchet offers a direct and clear route to understanding the topic, taking a top-down approach and ordering topics by relevance. Tried and tested practical techniques and advice on implementation, applications and deployment provide ‘how-to’ information on everything you need to know to put the technology to work. Migrating to IPv6: Provides a complete, up-to-date, in-depth, and accessible practical guide to IPv6. Demonstrates the theory with practical and generic examples and major implementation configurations, such as Windows, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, Cisco, Juniper and Hexago. Provides a comprehensive reference to key data structures and packet formats. Summarizes topics in table and graphical form to give fast access to information, including over 200 figures. Offers an accompanying website with extra coverage of specific topics, information on additional protocols and specifications, and updates on new features. This text will give network engineers, managers and operators, software engineers and IT professionals and analysts a thorough understanding of IPv6.