Packet delay, loss and reordering in IPv6 world: A case study

Abstract

With the exhausting of IPv4 addresses, the transition to IPv6 is imminent. In order to gain a deep understanding of IPv6, this paper revisits several critical IPv6 performance metrics. Our extensive measurement shows that packet delay and loss of IPv6 is similar to IPv4 when the AS-level paths are roughly the same. Specifically, when the link utilization exceeds a threshold, e.g., 0.83 in our study, variation of packet delay presents a similar pattern with the variation of link utilization. If packet delay of a path is large, packet-loss rate of that path is more likely to fluctuate. In addition, we conduct an analysis of packet reordering in IPv6 world. Few IPv6 probe packets are out-of-order and the reordering rate is 2.3×10-6, which is much lower than the average rate of 0.79% in IPv4 world. Our analysis consolidates an experimental basis for IPv6 network operators and researchers.