IPv4 addresses are exhausted. Let’s discuss IPv6 penetration and IP migration complexity.

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As a basic resource, IPv4 has supported the development and growth of the global Internet over the past two decades, enabling the interconnection of millions of enterprises and billions of people, and generating trillions of economic value. As of 2011, there are no more IPv4 addresses available in the world (IPv4 can only provide 4.3 billion addresses, and there is less than one IP address per person for the world's 6 billion people). As the next version of IPv4, IPv6 has attracted the attention of the industry with its huge address space, good security, and flexible usage, and has also begun to steadily enter the stage of communication history.

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As more and more hardware needs to be connected to the Internet, such as computers, mobile phones, TVs, wearable devices, cars, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc., the original IPv4, which had less than one IP address per person, can no longer meet the demand. As early as 2009, global operators had foreseen that IPv4 addresses would soon run out and could not support the rapid development of the telecommunications industry in the future. For example, France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Electrek Malta, Comcast and China Telecom have successively launched IPv6 pilot projects. In the IT industry, well-known websites such as Google and Yahoo have successively announced the release of permanent IPv6 domain names to make full preparations for the advent of the IPv6 era.

It is inevitable that IPv6 will replace IPv4, but this process is a gradual process. For a long time, the two IP formats will coexist until IPv4 is no longer needed. Google has published the application of IPv6 on its website, hoping to provide some help for network service providers and website operators when migrating to IPv6.

Google collects global IPv6 usage data through its website visits. From the chart, we can see that the adoption rate of IPv6 has been showing a steady growth trend from 2012 to 2017. From 0.64% in June 2012 to 16.74% in March 2017, it has increased 25 times.

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The following figure shows the IPv6 adoption rate of various countries through a world map. The green part in the figure represents the countries that have deployed IPv6, and the darker the color, the greater the deployment rate. The red part indicates that IPv6 has not been deployed or that although IPv6 has been deployed, there are serious stability and popularization delay issues.

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The country with the highest IPv6 adoption rate is Belgium, at 51.65%. The United States is next, with an adoption rate of 35.2%. Greece and Germany are next, with adoption rates of 32.38% and 30.85%, respectively. India and Brazil are also countries with relatively high adoption rates, at 22.42% and 20.29%, respectively.

The adoption rates of other countries are mostly above 10%, such as Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, Finland, Malaysia, etc., and are mostly between 11% and 19%. There are also some countries with adoption rates below 10%, such as Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Argentina, etc.

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China's IPv6 adoption rate is only 1.2%. Because China has a large population base and a large number of Internet users, the migration speed will be relatively slow, and the corresponding rate will be relatively low. In addition, due to network access restrictions, many Chinese Internet users may not be able to directly access Google, resulting in Google being unable to collect these data.

Technically speaking, IPv6 addresses and IPv4 addresses have different protocol formats and characteristics, so the planning process is different. Localities also need to carry out corresponding planning based on the address allocation rules of enterprise organizations. In the overall planning of IPv4 to IPv6 migration, try to refer to the current network design, and try to match the IPv6 address planning with the current IPv4 network design to reduce risks.

The purpose of network IPv6 evolution is to build IPv6 capabilities on the existing network architecture and solve the current network service development problems. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish scenarios and adopt different evolution strategies. In the process of formulating development ideas, the investment returns and technical risks brought by the following factors must be considered.

• 1) Network factors: Consider the support of existing network equipment for IPv6, the impact of deploying IPv6 on the existing network, and how to effectively utilize old equipment in the existing network. These factors will determine the scope and pace of transformation, such as a one-time transformation of the entire network or a phased transformation of the existing network.
• 2) Business factors: clarify which services should be prioritized for IPv6 evolution and how to adapt business processes. These factors will have an impact on the subsequent development of IPv6 services. For example, completing the iTV service transformation first can release a large number of public IPv4 addresses and alleviate address pressure.
• 3) User factors: How to ensure that the user experience does not decline or even improves during the IPv6 evolution process. These factors will have an important impact on the subsequent development of users, such as users experiencing the benefits of large bandwidth through IPv6 and being willing to pay for it.
• 4) Cost factors: Different IPv6 evolution plans have different equipment costs and operating costs, which determines the investment and evolution pace of the IPv6 evolution process.

In the overall planning, the requirements for security, scalability and routing aggregation should be unified. To provide a basis for the efficient use of IPv6 addresses in the future, the most important thing in IPv6 address planning is IPv6 prefix planning.

• Fine-grained service segmentation: Through the Service field, fine-grained service segmentation can be achieved, and large-granular policy processing can be performed on different services based on IP addresses. For example, complex flow classification can be used to achieve multi-service QoS processing on IP networks.
• Simple routing strategy: Implement flexible and diverse routing strategies based on business type, network type, and regional location fields;
• What you see is what you get: The Region field matches the administrative area management, so that what you see is what you get, reducing the difficulty of tracing;

We know that the IPv6 evolution process needs to fully consider the impact on the network, services, and users, and reduce the transformation cost. In order to achieve the above ideas, the following principles need to be followed during the evolution process.

1. Consider the entire network, from easy to difficult principle: In the early stage of IPv6 evolution, in order to gradually accumulate IPv6 evolution experience and reduce the risks in the evolution process, it is necessary to consider the evolution process end-to-end with IP addresses as the main line, business development and network conditions as the core. In the process of network evolution, given that the closer to the user, the more complex the business, the greater the difficulty of IPv6 transformation, it is necessary to carry out network IPv6 evolution from top to bottom in the metropolitan area network, and realize IPv6 technology transformation from easy to difficult, so as to reduce the technical risks in deployment.

2. Deploy on demand and follow the principle of gradual transformation: Whether it is dividing the evolution scenarios, focusing on the user scenarios, or considering the network, business, user and cost factors in the evolution, it is all for the purpose of carrying out deployment and transformation on demand to maximize the investment effect and minimize the deployment risk. In the process of IPv6 evolution, in order to accumulate experience, control the technical risks in the evolution process and develop IPv6 services, it is necessary to follow the principle of gradual transformation and reduce the cost in the process of evolving to IPv6.

3. Reduce the impact and smooth evolution principle: IPv6 evolution is currently a medium- to long-term process with multiple technologies coexisting. The deployment and application of multiple network technologies in the existing network not only brings new technologies but also introduces technical risks. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate and grasp the impact of new technologies on existing network services during the entire evolution process. In this process, it is necessary to avoid the impact of technology migration on user experience and perception. Therefore, in the process of evolving to IPv6, the ability to smoothly switch transition technologies is required, which also meets the requirements of maximizing investment effects and minimizing deployment risks.