Evaluating IPv4 to IPv6 transition mechanisms

The next-generation Internet protocol, initially known as IP next generation (IPng), and then later IPv6, has been developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to replace the current Internet protocol (also known as IPv4). To enable the integration of IPv6 into current networks, several transition mechanisms have been proposed by the IETF IPng Transition Working Group. Two transition mechanisms are examined and empirically evaluated, namely 6-over-4, and IPv6 in IPv4 tunneling, as they relate to the performance of IPv6. The impact of these approaches are explored on end-to-end user application performance using metrics such as throughput, latency, host CPU utilization, TCP connection time, and the number of TCP connections per second that a client can establish with a remote server. All experiments were conducted using two duals stack (IPv4/IPv6) routers and two end-stations running Windows 2000, loaded with a dual IPv4/IPv6 stack.