Transition Mechanisms

As the name suggests, transition mechanisms help in the transition from one protocol to another. In the perspective of IPv6, transition basically means moving from IPv4 to IPv6. One day, IPv6 networks will completely replace today’s IPv4 networks. For the near term, a number of transition mechanisms are required to enable both protocols to operate simultaneously. Some of the most widely used transition mechanisms are discussed in the following sections.

Dual-Stack

Dual-stack is the foundational and preferred IPv4-to-IPv6 transition mechanism. Dual-stack provides the most natural way for IPv6 hosts and networks to be deployed because no tunneling or translation needs to be performed for end-to-end connectivity. In a dual-stack deployment, both IPv4 and IPv6 are operational on all components (hosts, servers, routers, switches, firewalls, and so on) attached to the network.