Real World Applications of IPv6 from NTT Communications

Are There Benefits to an IPv6 NAT Solution?

Over the years, IPv6 proponents have offered many reasons for the adoption. As a core networking protocol, it is difficult to assign a fabulous and compelling business case – IPv6 is, after all, just plumbing. But if I had to sum it up, IPv6 is about scalability and a restoration of the end-to-end architecture originally intended by the creators of IP. Without the complications and limitation of Network Address Translation (NAT), network and security architects and application developers are free to devise streamlined solutions that preserve the security of infrastructure, yet take advantage of all that IPv6 has to offer as a communications protocol.

Recently though, NAT has reared its ugly head in the world of IPv6. While the idea of an IPv6 NAT is not new, it has never been given as much consideration as at the recent IETF meeting in San Francisco, CA. Essentially, the reasons given for an IPv6 NAT solution are:

• NAT gives organizations topology hiding – a perceived form of security – so we need it in IPv6 too
• NAT gives organizations freedom from ISP, so if they must switch, they won’t incur as much renumbering effort
• Vendors are building it anyway, so let’s have a standard rather than lots of uninteroperable IPv6 NAT solutions

The problem I have is that this isn’t about protecting networks or saving the world from interoperability issues. This is about being intellectually and technically lazy. This is about the proverbial “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. But perhaps I’m just too steeped in the lore of IPv6 advocacy to even comprehend the benefits of an IPv6 NAT solution – what do you think?

If you’d like to hear more, check out my blog on the topic.