MAP

Several IPv6 transition technologies have been developed to provide customers with IPv4-as-a-Service (IPv4aaS) for ISPs with an IPv6-only access and/or core network. These technologies have their advantages and disadvantages. Depending on existing topology, skills, strategy, and other preferences, one of these technologies may be the most appropriate solution for a network operator.

This document examines the five most prominent IPv4aaS technologies and considers a number of different aspects to provide network operators with an easy-to-use reference to assist in selecting the technology that best suits their needs.

IPv4-over-IPv6 transition mechanisms provide IPv4 connectivity services over IPv6 native networks during the IPv4/IPv6 coexistence period. DHCPv6 options have been defined to configure clients for Lightweight 4over6, Mapping of Address and Port with Encapsulation (MAP-E), Mapping of Address and Port using Translation (MAP-T) unicast softwire mechanisms, and multicast softwires. However, in many networks, configuration information is stored in an Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) server, which utilizes the Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) protocol to provide centralized management for users. When a new transition mechanism is developed, new RADIUS attributes need to be defined correspondingly.

This document defines new RADIUS attributes to carry softwire configuration parameters based on Address plus Port from a AAA server to a Broadband Network Gateway. Both unicast and multicast attributes are covered.

This memo defines a portion of the Management Information Base (MIB) for Mapping of Address and Port with Encapsulation (MAP-E) for use with network management protocols.

Benchmarking methodologies that address the performance of network interconnect devices that are IPv4- or IPv6-capable exist, but the IPv6 transition technologies are outside of their scope. This document provides complementary guidelines for evaluating the performance of IPv6 transition technologies. More specifically, this document targets IPv6 transition technologies that employ encapsulation or translation mechanisms, as dual-stack nodes can be tested using the recommendations of RFCs 2544 and 5180. The methodology also includes a metric for benchmarking load scalability.

This document specifies a solution for the delivery of IPv4 multicast services to IPv4 clients over an IPv6 multicast network. The solution relies upon a stateless IPv4-in-IPv6 encapsulation scheme and uses an IPv6 multicast distribution tree to deliver IPv4 multicast traffic. The solution is particularly useful for the delivery of multicast service offerings to customers serviced by Dual-Stack Lite (DS-Lite).

This document defines a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol version 6 (DHCPv6) Option for multicast IPv4 service continuity solutions, which is used to carry the IPv6 prefixes to be used to build unicast and multicast IPv4-embedded IPv6 addresses.

In IPv6-only provider networks, transporting IPv4 packets encapsulated in IPv6 is a common solution to the problem of IPv4 service continuity. A number of differing functional approaches have been developed for this, each having their own specific characteristics. As these approaches share a similar functional architecture and use the same data plane mechanisms, this memo specifies a DHCPv6 option, whereby a single instance of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) can interwork with all of the standardized and proposed approaches to providing encapsulated IPv4-in-IPv6 services by providing a prioritization mechanism.

In some use cases, e.g., Lightweight 4over6, the client may require not just one port, but a port set. This document defines an extension to the Port Control Protocol (PCP) that allows clients to manipulate a set of ports as a whole. This is accomplished using a new MAP option: PORT_SET.

This document describes the testing result of a network utilizing a Mapping of Address and Port using Translation (MAP-T) double translation solution; it provides an overview of user applications' behavior with a shared IPv4 address.

The MAP-T software is from CERNET Center and the test environment is on the NIC.br network with real and virtualized machines.

During the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, customer equipment may have to support one of the various transition methods that have been defined for carrying IPv4 packets over IPv6. This document enumerates the information that needs to be provisioned on a customer edge router to support a list of transition techniques based on tunneling IPv4 in IPv6, with a view to defining reusable components for a reasonable transition path between these techniques. To the extent that the provisioning is done dynamically, Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) support is needed to provide the information to the network server responsible for passing the information to the customer equipment. This document specifies Diameter (RFC 6733) Attribute-Value Pairs (AVPs) to be used for that purpose.

This document describes a mechanism for transporting IPv4 packets across an IPv6 network using IP encapsulation. It also describes a generic mechanism for mapping between IPv6 addresses and IPv4 addresses as well as transport-layer ports.

This document specifies the solution architecture based on "Mapping of Address and Port" stateless IPv6-IPv4 Network Address Translation (NAT64) for providing shared or non-shared IPv4 address connectivity to and across an IPv6 network.