The deployment of IPv6 stateless auto-configuration in access network

Abstract

IPv6, the successor of IPv4, has gotten a lot of investigation from the academic and research community as well as the manufacturers. Since it is coming near to commercialization, the deployment of IPv6 is becoming more and more urgent. One of the most appealing features in IPv6, stateless auto-configuration mechanism, can make the IPv6 terminal true "plug & play" and also provide convenience for node's mobility. However, this mechanism is originally designed for open friendly computer network environments, it cannot be directly applied in telecommunication access networks. This paper investigates how to deploy of IPv6 stateless auto-configuration in access network. Firstly, the architecture of the future IPv6 access network is described, and the potential problems are identified. Then, stateless auto-configurations in different network models are carefully investigated, including proposing some effective solutions to deploying IPv6 stateless auto-configuration mechanism in them. In addition, the issues related to the stateless auto-configuration mechanism (e.g., network service selection & authentication and multiple prefixes selection in ISP/multi-homing environments) are also discussed. I. INTRODUCTION With the rapid development of Internet, the network architecture is required to evolve to support the fast growing numbers of users, applications, and services. IPv6, which is designed to meet these requirements, provides such a vast number of available addresses that nearly every electrical device/terminal in the world could be connected