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Journal of Computer Sciences
Original Research Paper
IPv6 Transition Mechanism on UKMNet Network
Environment
1Mohd Azi Bin Abdullah and 2Nor Effendy Othman
1Department of Network, Center for Information Technology,
National University of Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi Selangor, Malaysia
2Research Center for Software Technology and Management (SOFTAM),
Faculty of Information Science and Technology, National University of Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi Selangor, Malaysia
Article history
Received: 07-03-2016
Revised: 28-07-2016
Accepted: 14-12-2016
Corresponding Author:
Mohd Azi Abdullah
Department of Network, Center
for Information Technology,
National Universiti of Malaysia
(UKM), Bangi Selangor,
Malaysia
Email: aziabdullah@ukm.edu.my
Abstract: The production of IPv4 has ceased its supply and this has created
a global phenomenon that is faced by Internet providers and users around
the world. This means that IPv6 implementation phase has begun and IPv4
duties will be taken over by the IPv6 protocol. Technically, IPv4 and IPv6
cannot communicate directly due to the difference of architecture. IPv6
transition mechanism is used as a medium to allow both protocols to
communicate and exist together on the same network. This study is
performed to examine and investigate the performance of the 6to4 and Dual
Stack transition mechanism based on performance metrics like throughput,
jitter and end-to-end delay when implemented on UKMNet network. The
test infrastructure is built on the UKMNet network and the test was
conducted using the testbed approached. The final result found that the 6to4
mechanism is more reliable and easy to implement on UKMNet
environment compared to dual stack mechanism.
Keywords: 6to4, Dual Stack, Testbed, Transition Mechanism, Throughput,
Jitter, End-to-End Delay, TCP
Introduction
The deterioration of IPv4 addresses has led
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to create
Internet Protocol next generation (IPng) or IPv6. IPv4
address deterioration issue was first detected in
August 1990 by a group of researchers. Goth (2012)
in his report stated On February 3, 2011, Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), an organization
responsible for managing the global IPv4 has
distributed the last blocks of IPv4 addresses to the
Regional Internet Registry (RIR) and this is the sign
that IPv4 production is over. Asia Pacific Network
Information Center (APNIC), the RIRs distribute IP
addresses to Malaysia has also made the final
distribution of their IP addresses in the same year, on
April 19, 2011 and this means that the IPv6 transition
in Malaysia should have entered implementation
phases. This phenomenon indirectly creates a scenario
of coexistence between IPv4 and IPv6 protocols.
IPv6 protocol is designed to cover vulnerabilities
found in IPv4. It was developed to ensure the
continuation of IP addressing. Rafiee et al. (2012) stated
in his research that the main advantages of IPv6 are it
huge address space feature. According to Lee and Lough
(1998), IPv4 and IPv6 protocol aren’t able to
communicate directly due to the architecture that is
significantly different. To enable these protocols to
communicate within the same network, an intermediary
medium is needed to enable communication between
both parties. An independent body, namely Internet
world Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has
developed IPv6 transition mechanisms. This mechanism
is designed as an intermediate medium for IPv4 and IPv6
protocol to communicate.
The IPv6 transition cannot be implemented
overnight. It needs to be well planned before
commencing the implementation phase. According to
Wu et al. (2013) transition process needs to be
conducted phases by phase due to operating costs,
utilities and change factors that should be considered by
an organization before commencing the transition
process. Therefore, the selection of suitable IPv6
transition mechanisms can ensure the transition process
goes smoothly. Lu (2011) in his paper mention that the
operation of campus network is managing a mass
Mohd Azi Bin Abdullah and Nor Effendy Ot hman / Journal of Computer Sciences 2016, 12 (11): 545.552
DOI: 10.3844/jcssp.2016.545.552
546
number of IP addresses, fast data transmitting, with high
definition image and security management. Wang and
Xu (2011) added that proper testing procedures are the
crucial requirement in order to test the IPv6 transition
mechanism before implementing on the actual network.
UKMNet is a campus network for National University of
Malaysia (UKM). Yousafzai et al. (2014) in his research
stated that the development of IPv6 networks in UKM is
still at the minimum rates. The aim of this study was to
test the suitability of the IPv6 transition mechanisms
based on existing UKMNet network specifications.
Abdullah and Othman (2015) have reviewed the current
studies from 2009 to 2015 of IPv6 transition
performance on testbed setup.
In this study, two IPv6 transition mechanisms have
been tested on testbed network that was built on
UKMNet campus network. The focus of this paper is
intended to assist the implementation of IPv6 transition
mechanisms on the campus network and to investigate
the performance of the transition mechanism before
commencing the actual implementation phases. The
organization of this paper is as follows: Section II
contains a brief introduction of dual stack and tunneling
mechanism. Section III shows the brief description of the
testbed setup. Section IV contains the evaluation of the
test performed. Section V contains analysis and the final
result of the experiment. The end of the section is the
conclusion of the study.
Transition Mechanism
Dual Stack Mechanism
Dual stack mechanism is the main mechanism
between the three mainstream types of IPv6 transition
mechanisms. The objective of the mechanism is to
enable the network device to communicate in two
different network protocols simultaneously. This is to
apply interoperability between IPv4 and IPv6 protocol
during the initial phase of the IPv6 transition migration
process. Xiaohong (2013) mentioned that Dual stack
mechanism can be implemented on hardware only or to
the entire network that requires two protocols to
operate simultaneously. This means that there will be a
two different protocol stack within the network device.
If the communication were initiated using the IPv6
protocol, the IPv6 datagram must travel via IPv4 network
to reach its destinations. Datagram header is analyzed to
determine the destination of packets sent. In addition, dual
stack mechanism does not allow direct communication
from IPv4 to IPv6 or vice versa. Therefore, Dual Stack
mechanism will map the IPv6 datagram to the IPv4
datagram and send it via the IPv4 network.
According to Azcorra et al. (2010), Dual stack
mechanism however requires double efforts in managing
the routing and addressing. This could cause burden to
the device that is running the Dual stack mechanism.
Guan and Xia (2009) show the Dual stack mechanisms
increase the burden on the network because it needs to
do the routing process on two protocols at the same
time. The operation of dual stack mechanism allows the
IPv4 only node to communicate with other IPv4 only
nodes when the IPv4 stack is enabled and vice versa.
Hong (2014) in his study found that only one protocol
could be running at a time. The Dual stack router needs
to do the protocol stack binding process and this could
increase routers burden and it efficiency will be
decreased. Dual stack could not solve the IPv4
exhaustion problem because the mechanism itself still
depends on IPv4 address.
Tunneling Mechanism
The tunneling mechanism uses tunnel concept to
transport traffic from one location to another. In IPv6
transition mechanism cases, tunnel mechanism is used
to connect two islands of same protocol via an ocean
of different protocol. The idea is to connect two
networks from the same protocol via a network from a
different protocol.
According to Narayan and Tauch (2010) IPv6
datagrams is encapsulated into IPv4 packets before being
sent via IPv4 network infrastructure to other IPv6 host
on the network. For example in order to send IPv6
datagram via IPv4 network, the IPv6 datagram need to
be encapsulated within the IPv4 datagram at the tunnel
starting point so it can travel via the IPv4 network. When
the encapsulated IPv6 datagram reaches the tunnel
endpoint it will be de-capsulate so that the IPv6
datagram can be sent to its destination. Vermani (2012)
in his study mention that there are two implementation
types of tunnel mechanism, namely Automatic
Tunneling and Configured Tunneling. Automatic
tunneling mechanism does not need both endpoints to be
configured but for manual tunneling one or both of the
tunnel end points need to be configured. The 6to4
mechanism is one of the automatic tunneling
mechanism. 6to4 enable the IPv6 network to connect to
another IPv6 network via IPv4 network.
Taib and Budiarto (2010) mentioned in their study
that Tunnel mechanism does not have a built in security
features. The verification process is performed by
checking the source address in the IPv4 packet header.
This situation is causing problems where IP spoofing and
packet injecting are major threat to the Tunneling
mechanism. Saraj et al. (2014) added the two networks
that are connected by Tunnel mechanism are unable to
communicate directly and communication must go
through an intermediate medium that can lead to
decrease of reliability of subsequent data.
For further discussion on the current performance of
IPv6 transition mechanism studies can be found on
Mohd Azi Bin Abdullah and Nor Effendy Ot hman / Journal of Computer Sciences 2016, 12 (11): 545.552
DOI: 10.3844/jcssp.2016.545.552
547
author other journal (Abdullah and Othman, 2015) that
mainly focus on the review of IPv6 transition mechanism
implementation on campus network.
Testbed Setup
In previous studies, Yousafzai et al. (2014) have
built IPv6 test infrastructure on UKMNet campus
network. This research is intended to evaluate the
performance of 6to4 and Dual Stack mechanism based
on TCP and UDP traffic perspective when implemented
on UKMNet infrastructure. The parameter used to
evaluate the network performance is based on QoS
parameter that focuses only on data transmission on
TCP traffic. According to Abdullah and Othman
(2015), most of the researcher used throughput, jitter
and end-to-end delay performance metric that were
tested on TCP and UDP traffic to evaluate tunnel type
and Dual Stack transition mechanism.
The test equipment will be installed on the real
UKMNet campus network and the simulated traffic will
be transmitted on the VLAN created for the test purpose.
The parameters used on this testbed specification are
based on current specification of UKMNet. This is to
imitate the current scenario of the UKMNet
environment. Figure 1 shows the general overview of the
testbed setup on the UKMNet environment.
The Setup
The testbed setup contains router, workstation and
a server. This device was installed and attached to the
existing UKMNet network device. Here both
workstation and server were attached to the different
part of the network. Router were used to route the
simulation traffic to the other endpoint of the test
infrastructure. Both of the transition mechanisms
tested were configured on the end-to-end router. D-
ITG software was installed on both endpoints to
generate simulation for the network traffic. At the end
of the network, Wireshark software is used to collect
and analyzed the network traffic. Table 1 shows the
specification of the testbed setup and the parameter
used during the test.
Fig. 1. Testbed setup
Table 1. Testbed Specification
Parameter Specification
Server Operating System Windows Server 2008 R2, Intel Xeon Quad Core
Workstation Operating System Windows 7, Intel Pentium 4.641/3.2 Ghz
Packet Size 1500 byte
Duration 5 minute
Performance Metrics Throughput, Jitter, End-to-End Delay
Traffic used TCP and UDP
Mechanism 6to4 and Dual Stack
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Evaluation
Performance Metrics
According to the study made by Abdullah and
Othman (2015), most of the IPv6 researchers often use
Quality of Service (QoS) parameter like throughput,
jitter and end-to-end delay to determine their network
performance when implemented with IPv6 transition
mechanism. Some of the researcher like Aazam et al.
(2011; Bahaman et al., 2012; Hadiya et al., 2013;
Narayan and Tauch, 2010) prefer testbed approach to
measure network performance compared to simulation
approach when implemented with IPv6 transition
mechanism. Throughput in network perspective can be
elaborate as the number of data that can be transmitted
from one location to another. These parameters are used
to measure workload on the network. Throughput
parameter enables the measurement on how many
packets that can be processed by the network based on
the time given. Jitter is the difference between the time
taken for a packet to reach its destination. Jitter usually
does not cause interference on the network, but it can be
used to evaluate transmission performance using UDP
datagram transmission in a network. Jitter parameters
used to test the workload router. The effectiveness of
data transmission on a network is dependent on the
router used. The end-to-end delay is defined as the time
taken by the packet data transmitted from the source
node to the destination node across the network. End-to-
end delay parameters are calculated by subtracting the
packet arrives at the destination node with the packets
sent by the source node. The difference of the time is
known as the end-to-end delay. This parameter is used to
test the ability of a router in data transmission. Figure 2
and 3 show the 6to4 and Dual Stack testbed setup on
UKMNet network.
Fig. 2. 6to4 testbed setup
Fig. 3. Dual stack testbed setup
Mohd Azi Bin Abdullah and Nor Effendy Ot hman / Journal of Computer Sciences 2016, 12 (11): 545.552
DOI: 10.3844/jcssp.2016.545.552
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Result and Analysis
Result
The metrics used to evaluate the performance of the
network are throughput, jitter and end-to-end delay.
Table 2 summarizes the result of comparison between
Dual Stack mechanism and 6to4 mechanism in our
experiment. The result shows that 6to4 mechanism
achieved higher throughput, lower UDP jitter and
TCP end-to-end delay than Dual Stack mechanism.
The next sub section will further describe and analyze
the result gained from the experiment.
Analysis
Based on Fig. 4, throughput for 6to4 mechanism
shows better result compared to the Dual Stack
throughput. The average 6to4 mechanism throughput
value is 471 kbps and the average value of Dual Stack
mechanism throughput is 279 kbps. This means 6to4
mechanism can process within 37-40 packets per
second and Dual Stack mechanisms can only process
25-30 packets per second. The throughput for Dual
Stack mechanisms is lower than 6to4 mechanism is
due to the burden borne by equipment that adapts the
Dual Stack mechanism. Dual Stack mechanism has to
process two protocols simultaneously and this leads to
increase of processor burden and workload. The cost
also will increase due to the need of high-end router
product to accommodate the needs of high power
processing to ensure the smooth network operation.
Figure 5 shows the average jitter for the 6to4
mechanism is 0.009 milliseconds while the average
jitter for the mechanism Dual Stack is 1.376
milliseconds. The difference in the average jitter for
both of these mechanisms is of 1.367 milliseconds.
6to4 mechanism jitter value is lower than the Dual
Stack mechanism due to router workload that
processes the packet is low and the router can process
and release the packet into the network at the rapid
pace. Figure 6 graph shows the average value of end-
to- end delay tested on TCP traffic for the 6to4
mechanism is 1,223 milliseconds while the mechanism
Dual Stack is 1.314 milliseconds. Delay time difference
between the two mechanisms is 0.009 milliseconds per
packet. This shows the mechanism Dual Stack has a
slight time delay mechanisms than 6to4. The difference
proof the processing router for Dual Stack mechanism
is higher than 6to4 mechanism.
Table 2. Test Result
Mechanism
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Metrics Dual stack 6to4
TCP Throughput (kbps) 279.000 471.000
UDP Jitter (ms) 1.376 0.009
TCP End-to-End Delay (ms) 1.314 1.223
Fig. 4. Throughput graph
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Fig. 5. Jitter Graph
Fig. 6. End-to-end delay graph
In contrast to the Dual Stack mechanism, 6to4
mechanism performs encapsulation process on the
tunnel start point and de-capsulate the datagram at the
tunnel end point. The IPv6 datagram will be
encapsulated into the IPv4 datagram and will be sent
via the IPv4 network. When the datagram reached the
tunnel end point, it will be de-capsulate and the IPv6
datagram will be sent to its destination. The
encapsulation and de-capsulation process involves
only on the router part and does not involve any other
equipment.
Conclusion
IPv6 has become a necessity due to the
deterioration of IPv4 addresses. This is to
accommodate the growing number of users emerging
technology. The migration from IPv4 to IPv6 protocol
requires a long period of time to be implemented. This
process requires IPv4 and IPv6 to coexist in one
network and IPv6 transition mechanism is needed to
enable both protocols to communicate. A proper
planning and suitable selection of transition
Mohd Azi Bin Abdullah and Nor Effendy Ot hman / Journal of Computer Sciences 2016, 12 (11): 545.552
DOI: 10.3844/jcssp.2016.545.552
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mechanism can avoid any disruption to the current
network during the migration phase.
This study is performed to find the best transition
mechanism to be implemented on UKMNet network
and all the specification build in this study is based on
UKMNet network environment. Overall the test
results found that the 6to4 mechanisms tunnel type is
more suitable to be implemented on the UKMNet
compare to Dual Stack mechanisms. This is due to the
ease and simple configuration compared to Dual Stack
mechanisms that are complex and costly to be applied
to the networks. The test also proved that network
equipment that implements Dual Stack mechanisms
have a high workload compare to equipment that
implement with the 6to4 mechanism.
Funding Information
This work was funded by National University of
Malaysia (UKM) under grant no. GGPM-2015-005.
Author’s Contributions
All authors equally contributed in this work.
Ethics
This article is original and contains unpublished
material. The corresponding author confirms that all of
the other author have read and approved the manuscript
and no ethical issues involved.
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