IPv4-v6 configured tunnel and 6to4 transition mechanisms network performance evaluation on Linux operating systems

Last few decades has brought many fundamental changes to data communications and the Internet. Internet has its roots in a networking project started by ARPA which consisted of four computers. Now the Internet spans the globe, and has become the default communication mechanism for businesses and individuals. IPv4 addresses will soon be exhausted, which has initiated development of IPv6. The new IP version provides solution to problems that were inherent in the earlier version, and also offers additional opportunities. However transition to the new version has been remarkably slow. Thus in the interim, various transition mechanisms can be employed. In this paper two such mechanisms, namely configured tunnel and 6to4 transition mechanism, have been empirically evaluated for performance. Both mechanisms are implemented on two different Linux distributions, and performance related metrics like throughput, delay, jitter and CPU usage of the transition end nodes are measured. The results obtained on the test-bed show that TCP/UDP throughput and jitter values of the two mechanisms are similar, but delay reading is significantly different depending on the choice of transition mechanism and operating system.