An alternative approach to multi-path forwarding on IPv6 networks

This paper proposes a novel technique to enable flow-level multi-path forwarding on IPv6 networks. Generally on such networks, any packet from a node is forwarded toward a destination along the same path, even if some of the packets belong to a different flow with different characteristics. In accordance with packet characteristics and to fulfil demands such as traffic engineering and QoS routing, flow-level multi-path forwarding allows explicit selection of the paths on which to send packets. Multi protocol label switching (MPLS) technology has been used to perform this function so far. However, to apply MPLS on an existing IPv6 network, all non-MPLS-enabled routers in the network must be replaced with MPLS-enabled routers. Therefore, the migration cost is generally expensive. Our previous work has proposed a technique called flow-mapping explicit host routing (FMEHR,), that renders similar results to MPLS using unused address spaces such as IP private addresses. This paper describes the FMEHR concept and its realization on an IPv6 network and discusses its characteristics.