Non-random generator for IPv6 tables

The next generation Internet Protocol, IPv6, has attracted growing attention. The characteristics of future IPv6 routing tables play a key role in router architecture and network design. In order to design and analyze efficient and scalable IP lookup algorithms for IPv6, IPv6 routing tables are needed. Analysis of existing IPv4 tables shows that there is an underlying structure that differs greatly from random distributions. Since there are few users on IPv6 at present, current IPv6 table sizes are small and unlikely to reflect future IPv6 network growth. Thus, neither randomly generated tables nor current IPv6 tables are good benchmarks for analysis. More representative IPv6 lookup tables are needed for the development of IPv6 routers. From an analysis of current IPv4 tables, algorithms are proposed for generating IPv6 lookup tables. Tables generated by the suggested methods exhibit certain features characteristic of real lookup tables, reflecting not only new IPv6 address allocation schemes but also patterns common to IPv4 tables. These tables provide useful research tools by a better representation of future lookup tables as IPv6 becomes more widely deployed.