IPv6 Diffusion Milestones: Assessing the Quantity and Quality of Adoption

There are currently two versions of Internet Protocol (IP) in use today, IP version 4 (IPv4) and IP version 6 (IPv6). The original version, IPv4, was standardized in the early 1980s as part of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency Internet program and became the official Internet protocol in 1983 (Kleinrock, 2010). IPv6 was standardized in 1995 as its successor to provide enhanced capabilities and address IPv4 technological limitations, most notable of which was the anticipated exhaustion of address space (Deering & Hinden, 1995). While the two protocols have some functional similarities, they are distinct and not backward compatible; IPv4-only devices cannot communicate directly with IPv6-only devices and vice-versa. Consequently, organizations wishing to take full advantage of the enhanced features of IPv6 must upgrade their entire network infrastructure and end devices to support IPv6, while at the same time maintaining IPv4 support for legacy systems that will not or cannot be upgraded. The costs and risks associated with upgrading an entire network to support a new protocol with no intrinsic return on investment has acted as a disincentive for IPv6 adoption. To be sure, the transition of the Internet to IPv6 has certainly taken a leisurely pace over the past twenty years. Given the slow pace of adoption, it is understandable that many doubted, and may still doubt that IPv6 will ever become the dominant Internet protocol and replace IPv4. However, in line with diffusion of innovations theory, it is the case with many innovations that potential adopters do not perceive any relative advantage, thus leading to a particularly slow adoption take-up rate. This is especially true with communications technologies that have high interdependence and require a critical mass of users before adoption becomes self-sustaining and rapidly accelerates (Rogers 2003). The goal of this paper is to provide empirical evidence showing that IPv6 adoption has reached critical mass and is now in a phase of accelerating adoption projected to continue. A methodology for monitoring the quality of IPv6 enablement and global IPv6 support is also provided so that the user experience over IPv6 can be assessed against the IPv4 baseline

Analysis of Web Protocols Evolution on Internet Traffic

This research focus on the analysis of ten years of Internet traffic, from 2004 until 2013, captured and measured by Mawi Lab at a link connecting Japan to the United States of America. The collected traffic was analysed for each of the days in that period, and conjointly in that timeframe. Initial research questions included the test of the hypothesis of weather the change in Internet applications and Internet usage patterns were observable in the generated traffic or not. Several protocols were thoroughly analysed, including HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, UDP, IPv4, IPv6, SMTP, DNS. The effect of the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 was also analysed. Conclusions were drawn and the research questions were answered and the research hypothesis was confirmed.Esta pesquisa foca-se na análise de dez anos de tráfego de Internet, a partir de 2004 até 2013, capturado e medido pelo Mawi Lab numa ligação de fibra óptica entre o Japão e os Estados Unidos da América. O tráfego recolhido foi analisado para cada um dos dias nesse período, e também conjuntamente nesse período. As questões de pesquisa iniciais incluíram testar a hipótese de ser observável no tráfego gerado, a alteração das aplicações em uso na Internet e a alteração dos padrões de uso da Internet. Vários protocolos foram analisados exaustivamente, incluindo HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, UDP, IPv4, IPv6, SMTP e DNS. O efeito da transição do IPv4 para o IPv6 também foi analisado. As conclusões foram tiradas, as questões de pesquisa foram respondidas e a hipótese de pesquisa foi confirmada

A Brave New World: Studies on the Deployment and Security of the Emerging IPv6 Internet.

Recent IPv4 address exhaustion events are ushering in a new era of rapid transition to the next generation Internet protocol---IPv6. Via Internet-scale experiments and data analysis, this dissertation characterizes the adoption and security of the emerging IPv6 network. The work includes three studies, each the largest of its kind, examining various facets of the new network protocol's deployment, routing maturity, and security. The first study provides an analysis of ten years of IPv6 deployment data, including quantifying twelve metrics across ten global-scale datasets, and affording a holistic understanding of the state and recent progress of the IPv6 transition. Based on cross-dataset analysis of relative global adoption rates and across features of the protocol, we find evidence of a marked shift in the pace and nature of adoption in recent years and observe that higher-level metrics of adoption lag lower-level metrics. Next, a network telescope study covering the IPv6 address space of the majority of allocated networks provides insight into the early state of IPv6 routing. Our analyses suggest that routing of average IPv6 prefixes is less stable than that of IPv4. This instability is responsible for the majority of the captured misdirected IPv6 traffic. Observed dark (unallocated destination) IPv6 traffic shows substantial differences from the unwanted traffic seen in IPv4---in both character and scale. Finally, a third study examines the state of IPv6 network security policy. We tested a sample of 25 thousand routers and 520 thousand servers against sets of TCP and UDP ports commonly targeted by attackers. We found systemic discrepancies between intended security policy---as codified in IPv4---and deployed IPv6 policy. Such lapses in ensuring that the IPv6 network is properly managed and secured are leaving thousands of important devices more vulnerable to attack than before IPv6 was enabled. Taken together, findings from our three studies suggest that IPv6 has reached a level and pace of adoption, and shows patterns of use, that indicates serious production employment of the protocol on a broad scale. However, weaker IPv6 routing and security are evident, and these are leaving early dual-stack networks less robust than the IPv4 networks they augment.PhDComputer Science and EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120689/1/jczyz_1.pd

Assessing IPv6 Through Web Access - A Measurement Study and Its Findings

Transitioning an infrastructure the size of the Internet is no small feat. We are in the midst of such a transition, \ie from IPv4 to IPv6. IPv6 was standardized 15~years ago, but until recently there were few incentives to adopt it. The allocation of the last large block of IPv4 addresses changed that, and migrating to an IPv6 Internet has become more urgent. This migration is, however, still rife with uncertainties and challenges. The goal of this paper is to provide insight into this transition, and possibly make it smoother. The focus is on the ``network,\u27\u27 and the paper reports on extensive measurements that compare and contrast IPv6 and IPv4. Two important hypotheses, denoted as H1 and H2, were identified and validated. H1 argues that the IPv6 and IPv4 data planes now perform by and large comparably. In contrast, H2 points to routing differences as the primary culprit behind occurrences of poorer IPv6 performance. In other words, promoting IPv6 and IPv4 peering parity is probably the single most effective step towards equal IPv6 and IPv4 performanc