DETERMINATION OF IPV6 PROTOCOL, ITS DEPLOYMENT AND EFFICIENCY, IN COMPUTER SYSTEM NETWORKS IN NIGERIA BY OPARA, F. K. and ETUS CHUKWUEMEKA Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria. ABSTRACT The upsurge in use of the Internet has led to an increased requirement for Internet protocol (IP) numbers, which are rapidly running out. A new standard for IP numbering is being introduced to help overcome some of the limitations of the old system and provide enough addresses for the next century. This next generation IP tagged Internet protocol version six (IPV6), is a technology that is gaining momentum. It proposes a major change in the basic network infrastructure of the Internet and is poised to have far-reaching effects due to the ubiquity of the Internet today. However, due to the prompting need to keep-up with emerging technological trends, this work investigates and addresses the necessity of IPV6, its developmental efforts so far, its structural features and mechanisms, and transitional strategies from the current IPV4 networks. These are not without the attendant real-life constraints associated with IPV6 functionality and applications at present or as envisaged in the future; with some recommendations; using the Nigerian Internet industry as a context determining IPV6 deployment, the extent and spread with its dictating factors, in relation to its envisaged efficiency as the next generation Internet protocol suite. Keywords: IP numbers, next generation IP, network infrastructure, transitional strategies, deployment, and efficiency. 1.0 INTRODUCTION Internet protocol version six (IPV6), also known as the Transmission control protocol – Internet protocol (TCP/IP) suite version number six, is a protocol developed for the next generation Internet with 128-bit address space. It is the addressing protocol for data packet transmission and communication over tomorrow’s Internet. The Internet protocol version six (IPV6), also known as the Internet protocol for next generation (Miller, 1998), is the last resort of several approaches employed in the bid to get rid of the problems of scarce Internet addresses, which has been limiting the addressing and routing capabilities of the current Internet protocol suite version four (IPV4); with the latter’s attendant 1 application and network problems which affected security, privacy and better support for mobile computing, amongst others. At the same time IP next generation (IPng) [Brader and Mankin, 1996] attempts to address one of the largest headaches of an IP network from the administrator’s point of view, that is, configuring the network. Anything that automates this process is welcomed, and IPV6 goes a long way in this respect. With its 128-bit address spaces, above 340 undecilion (i.e. 340x1036 or 2128) computer systems (unique hosts) can be hosted on the Internet’s multiple and mixed networks – private or public, whether LAN, MAN or WAN. IPV6, like any other protocol version, contain the protocol data unit (PDU), service data unit (SDU) and protocol control information (PCI), put together to serve the purposes of data transfer and management controls. Now, Transmission control protocol (TCP) as the base of IPV6 (like IPV4) has a separate connection for carrying commands and results between client and server and another separate connection for carrying actual files and directory transfer. The former is commonly called the command channel while the later is called data channel. Hence, the core set of IPV6 development addresses the following (Feyre, 2001): a. The IPV6 base protocol (TCP/IP) b. The address specification c. Description of the control protocol known as the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP). d. Problems of an enhanced Domain Name Service (DNS); and e. The transmission mechanism. This set has been expanded and developed to effect transfer of any type of file, including executable binaries, graphic images, American standard code for information interchange (ASCII) texts, postscripts, sound and video files, and lots more. Many network administrators, however, for fear that an incomplete one-day changeover from IPV4 Internet to IPV6 Internet may leave life chaotic for days or even weeks afterwards, dislike Ipv6 development. But thankfully, this should not be the case, since an IPV6 network can talk to an IPV4 network and vice-versa by employing IPV6 packets tunneling through IPV4 connection. So, there are few reasons to allege fear over IPV6, and every reason to start planning and/or effecting the changeover now. 2 2.0 WHY IPV6 PROTOCOL IPV6 development was necessitated by the ever increasing limitations and design deficiencies of the current internetworking protocol IPV4, which is being overwhelmed by the demands for address spaces and culminating to overloaded Internet routing systems and choking impacts on reliable services. The IPV4 Internet was originally created for the purpose of serving the educational and scientific community. However, the Internet was such a good idea that it quickly expanded and has now become far-reaching to have touched on almost every facet of the global community – IP telephony, movies, e-mails, e-commerce, and so on. Two basic problems were identified to be at the crux of the Internet expansion concerns [Huitema, 1995]: Routing tables in core routers growing faster than the routers’ memory spaces, and lists of available unused IP addresses shrinking rapidly. Hence, experts say that IPV4 Internet will face a serious problem in a few years if the address-related deficiencies are not resolved. There will be a point, they say, when no more free addresses will be available neither for the various domain structures which exist on the Internet nor for connecting new hosts. At that point, no new web services can be set up, no more new users can sign up for accounts at Internet service provider (ISP) companies, and no more new machines can be set up to access the web or participate in on-line gaming. However, the most prominent of the several approaches made to solve the IPV4 Internet problems is to assign a public address to one of the user’s machines (making it a server), while hiding several other machines behind the one bearing the official globally unique address. This approach is called Network Address Translation (NAT) or IP masquerading [Tsirtsis and Srisuresh, 2000]. The NAT also has its own problems as the machines hidden behind the globally unique address cannot be addressed or accessed. As a result of this, opening connections to them as used in on-line gaming, peer-to-peer networking, etc. is not possible. Therefore, the last approach resorted to in the bid to get rid of the problem of scarce Internet addresses, its attendant routing bottlenecks and other problems, and that of the inherent design limitations in the IPV4 Internet; is to abandon the handicapped Internetworking protocol suite (IPV4) at its base and go for a new Internet protocol suite that will fulfill, especially, the future demands on address spaces, and possibly also redress other features as privacy, security, and better 3 support for mobile computing, among other added improvements that may come with its development. IPV6 is now the answer. 3.0 OVERVIEW OF IPV6 STRUCTURE IPV6 is a protocol developed for the next generation internet and is known as the TCP/IP suite version number six, with 128-bit address space which can address well over 340 undecillion (2128 or 340.2823669 x 1036) unique hosts. It solves the problems of IPV4 by introducing needed new features while essentially following the same architecture as IPV4 – since it has been developed on the strength of IPV4 and not an entirely/completely new protocol [stallings, 2002]. The domain architecture of IPV6 includes the following in its design considerations [Shenker, 1995]: Extended and expanded addressing capabilities, expanded auto-configuration, simplified header format, extension header, mobile IPV6, Dual-mode stack, Internet protocol security (IP sec), flexibility, Quality of service (QoS) and the IPV6 addressing modes. These are considered below, one after another. (a) Extended and expanded addressing capabilities: These allow IPV6 to: (i) Handle additional addressing/addressable nodes – IPV6 addresses about 3.402823 669 x 1038 (over 340 undecillion nodes, for short), that translates to about 1,564 live Internet addresses per square meter on the earth surface to be uniquely identified on the internet – a capacity that leaves far greater than one IP address per slice of bread in a multi-slice toaster scenario. (ii) Handle additional addressing levels – IPV6 allows end-to-end/peer-topeer communication without NAT or other short-term workarounds against IPV4 shortage. All these allow for full, unconstrained IP connectivity for today’s IP-based machines as well as upcoming mobile devices like PDAs and cell phones, as all will benefit from full IP access through Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems (UMTS). Due to IPV6 multiple architecture, route aggregation is possible such that IPV6 have multiple addresses for each device interface. This makes route aggregation easy and quick should a host employ several access providers; it can have separate addresses aggregated within each provider’s address space. 4 (b) Expanded auto-configuration: with expanded auto-configuration, Internet machines are made plug and play, and can be installed without needing to configure IP addresses. It is also now much easier to remember the network. It is said that over half the IP networks in the world today have manually defined addresses. So, anything that can help this situation is most likely to be welcomed. Now, with IPV6 the minimum requirement for each host is that it should be able to generate one unique IP address and discover at least one router address – whether or not there is a server or router on its local subnet. It will then use the IPV6 link local prefix as the beginning of the address and automatically generate an address either by use of the Ethernet Card’s physical address as suffix with intervening space padded-out with zeros, or by use of routers’ address information (in a more sophisticated environment with DHCP- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), and by use of solicitation messages authenticate the address as a unique address for itself. In addition to the use of solicitation messages, IPV6 routers also send advertisements telling the host what addresses are available to that router. This enhances management of a switchover between different ISPs without having to annually reconfigure the hosts, even if DHCP or a similar scheme is not in use. (c) Simplified header format: Simplified IPV6 header was as a result of removal, renaming or retaining of some IPV4 header fields and introducing a new optional extension headers; with the headers chained. These added more flexibility to IPV6 header despite the fact that it now has a fixed length of 40 bytes and incorporates two 16 bytes addresses (source and destination) four times the size of IPV4 header. The two IPV6 headers defines the minimum need for an IPV6 packet, which includes the version, priority (traffic class), flow label, payload length, next header, hop limit and extension headers – a field to say, “and there’s another header after this one”. Hence, there is no limit to the number of headers that can be chained together in this way. 5 Fig. 1: simplified IPV6 header format. The IPV6 header fields as defined (Biemolt, 2002) are thus presented: The version field is a 4-bit field that designates the Internet protocol version number of the packet. It is important for routing since messages must be handled differently. The 4-bit priority field enables a source to specify a desired packet delivery priority with respect to another packet from the same source. This field has two ranges of priority – one for real-time traffic that is sent at a constant rate and does not respond to congestion, and vice versa. The 24-bit (3-byte) flow label field can be utilized by a source/sender to label the packet for which it requests special handling by IPV6 routers. This includes non-default Quality of Service (QoS) or real-time service. The payload length field contains a 16-bit (2 byte) unsigned integer that specified the size of the packet following the header in octets. The next header field serves as an 8-bit (byte) selector. The hop limit field contains an 8-bit (1 byte) unsigned integer, which is decremented each time a particular packet is forwarded. If a packet with hop limit zero is encountered, it is discarded. The extension headers have optional number of bits due to the complexity of the packet being handled. The 128-bit (16-byte) source address field contains the address of the initial source of the packet. The 128-bit (16-byte) Destination address field contains the address of the packet’s final destination, if the routing header is present. 6 Furthermore, the new solution (the simplified IPV6 header) is much more elegant, in that, straight forward tasks need only produce simple and light weight header while allowing more complicated applications or systems add whatever intricacy they need. Hence, the source decides the highest packet size handled by all routes throughout the destination. The source node then fragments the message into packets that do not need any further fragmentation by routers, and thus decreasing the total load on the routers and also allows vendors the ease to implement hardware acceleration for IPV6 routers. (d) IPV6 extension headers: IPV6 includes improved support for options. These options are placed in the extension headers, which are located between IPV6 header and the transport layer header and can be inserted when needed. They are of arbitrary length and the total amount of options in a packet can be greater than the 40 bytes allowed by IPV6. The main extension headers defined so far by IPV6 includes the Hop-by-Hop options header, the routing header, fragmentation header, destination options headers, authentication header and the encapsulation security payload header. Hop-by-Hop options header – A set of options needed to perform certain management or debugging functions and used for such special options that require hop-by-hop processing. Routing Header (RH) – used to mandate special routing. Fragmentation header (FH) – used for message fragmentation and reassembly. Destination option header – This header contains a set of options to be processed only by the final destination node having contained optional information that is to be examined by the destination node. Authentication header (AH) – used for security features like data authentication, data integrity and anti-replay protection for the entire IPV6 packet by use of the Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC). Data authentication ensures that an IP packet received by a computer (node) actually came from the given source address in the source address header. Data integrity ensures that the contents of an 7 IP packet have not been modified along the path from source node to the destination node, by use of the Integrity Check Value (ICV). While, anti-replay protection ensures that once a packet is received, another packet with modified data won’t also be accepted as valid data. Encapsulation Security Payload (ESP) – another security header that provides authentication and encryption ensuring message privacy or confidentiality. ESP header also provides anti-replay protection. Confidentiality refers to the fact that a given computer receiving an IP packet can be assured that nobody else has right to the contents of the IP packet, besides the routers needing necessary information. ESP header also contains the Security Parameter Index (SPI), which identifies the Security Association (SA) that employs which Internet Key Exchange (IKE) parameters. These mechanisms and parameters can be used individually or collectively to ensure varying level of security. The figure 2 below shows how the extension header fits into an IPV6 packet [Huitema, 1998]: Fig. 2: Extension headers in IPV6 packet. 8 IPV6 headers are advantageous in that they allow for more efficient, less limitations on the length of options in IPV6, and greater flexibility such that if the needs for new extensions arise, they can be added. These will be highly important as the Internet evolves to meet the demands of the changing markets of the future. (e) Mobile IPV6: - when mentioning mobile devices and IP, it is important to note that a special protocol called “mobile IP” is one of the requirements for every IPV6 stack, since our networks these days are becoming more and more mobile and wireless. Thus, anywhere there is IPV6 going, there is support for roaming between different networks with global notification when one leaves one network and enter another, without having to jump a number of loops in order to get things working. Mobile IPV6 makes use of a destination options header and a routing header. Both the routing header and the destination options header are used with mobile IPV6 to ensure that applications do not lose their TCP connection while a user is roaming from one network to another. Mobile IP uses home agent, home address, and care-of address. (f) IPV6 Dual – Mode Stack: The ability to interface with other networks types is in-built into the IPV6 standards. The main design consideration is being able to tunnel or encapsulate the version six (IPV6) message into the other version (IPV4). Implementing the dual-mode stack can take advantage of the existing version four (IPV4) network and also exploit the advantages of the new version six (IPV6) networks, as well as some other network infrastructures as Open System Interconnection (OSI) or IPX/SPX (Internet Packet Exchange/Sequence Packet Exchange) type networks. Embedded software providers like Integrated system Inc., offer embedded developers the necessary software for implementing a V4/V6 dual-mode stack. For instance, Epilogue AttachE plus 6 is a source-code IP stack used to implement IPV6 dual-mode stack. This has important attributes as small memory size (with the V4 stacks requiring 25 to 30 kilobytes of Read Only Memory (ROM) and the V6 stack requiring 50 to 60 9 kilobytes of ROM), configurability of V6 and V6 options to the processor, operating system (OS), and tool-chain independence. (g) IP Security (IP sec): IPV6 specification incorporates security right at the lowest level from day one. The security protocol of IPV6 is known as Internet Protocol Security (IP sec), and is implemented using the optional IPV6 extension headers to provide authentication, encryption and privacy as earlier discussed. IPsec utilizes the Authentication Header (AH) and the Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) header separately or in combination to provide the desired security. Both the AH and ESP headers are used in the following modes: (i) “Tunnel mode” – where the protocol is applied to the entire IP packet to ensure security of the entire packet. (ii) “Transport mode” – where the protocol is just applied to the transport layer (i.e. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)), in the form of headers AH or ESP, followed by the transport protocol data (header data). These are illustrated below: New IP AH Header AH Auth. Da ta Orig. IP TCP User’s Data (I) Tunnel m ode Ipsec New IP ESP Hea der Orig. IP TCP User’s Data ESP Trailer ESP Auth. Da ta (II) Transport m ode Ipsec Fig. 3: “Tunnel mode” and “Transport mode” IPsec Notably, IPsec involves a concept known as Security Association (SA), which is uniquely identified using the security parameter Index (SPI – a field in the AH / ESP headers), destination IP address, and security protocol headers (AH 10 and ESP). The SA defines the type of security services for a connection, and it contains the key needed for authentication or encryption and the authentication or encryption algorithms to be used. The Internet Key Exchange (IKE) then describes the process used to negotiate parameters needed to establish a new SA, Internet secret key, cryptographic algorithm, etc. (h) Flexibility: The flexibility in IPV6 is represented in two aspects: i. Exercising control over options handling, and ii. Permitting applications to designate the manner in which it treats unknown options. These endow IPV6 with the versatility with new options updated with regards to new functionalities. Also, IPV6 users can choose either (automatic) or strict (specific) routing methods for each loop throughout the path. IPV6 integrates this flexibility to incorporate additional routing methods as may be needed in future. IPV6 also permits all the functions of neighbor discovery including both retires and time-out parameters to be configured locally. This yields greater flexibility in addition to the capability of optimizing neighbor discovery for both the needs and constraints of each individual’s work. (I) Quality of Service (QoS): A quality of service (QoS) feature can be implemented using the flow label of the IPV6 header. QoS is a feature that ensures that high priority is given to certain packets that need to arrive at their destination in a timely manner. For in-streaming video or voice over IP (VOIP), these packets need to arrive close together since a small delay can make the voice choppy. If there is just text being transmitted, a small delay between the packets is really of no consequences. (J) IPV6 addressing modes: The extended and / or expanded address space is extremely large even though that was one of the driving reasons for developing the IPV6. But to manage IPV6 addresses, they are split into two parts: the net bits – bits that identify the network a machine is on, and the host bits-bits that identify a machine on a network or sub-network. The net bits are 11 the “left” or the most significant bits of an IP number, while the host bits are the “right” or the least significant bits. N net bits (128 – N) host bits Format prefix Interface ID Fig. 4: Two-part IPV6 address An IPV6 address can be in one of the 3 categories: Unicast, Anycast and Multicast. The format prefix of these classes of IPV6 addresses has fields comprising the leading bits in the address. (i) Unicast Address – used to identify single interfaces and are of several forms. These include the global communication; local-use address – for use on a single link for purposes such as auto-address configuration (i.e. link-local-use address), and for use in a single site (i.e. site-local-use address), and the IPV4 compatible IPV6 host address – that allow hosts and routers to dynamically tunnel IPV6 packets over IPV4 routing infrastructures (where the exist even after transition to IPV6). (ii) Anycast Address – unlike unicast address, this address is assigned to more than one interface (usually the property of different computers). Anycast address is used as part of a routing sequence to select ISP that will carry that node’s traffic and can be used to identify the set of routers attached to a subnet or the set of routers providing entry into a certain domain. Anycast addresses have the same format with unicast address since they are syntactically indistinguishable from unicast addresses. (iii) Multicast Address – used to identify a group of interfaces and to reach a number of hosts in the same multicast group – which can be machines spread across the Internet. It is possible for an interface to belong to multiple multicast groups and there are two special multicast 12 addresses that supercede the broadcast addresses from IPV4. One is the “all routers” multicast address; the other is for “all hosts”. Multicasting decreases the load on hosts and routers to transmit neighbor discovery messages only to those machines that are registered to accept them. This efficiently eliminates the extraneous packets. 4.0 ADVANTAGES OF IPV6 OVER PREVIOUS SUITE The IPV6 development has led to the emergence of five major advantages over IPV4. The first is scalability. The address space of IPV6 is 128 bits and hence addresses above 340 undecilion (i.e. about 2128 or 340.2823669 x 1036) hosts compared to the 32 bits of IPV4, which address only about 4.2 billion (i.e. 2 32 or 4.2x109) hosts. This allows for all reasonable cases of growth of the Internet. In the second place is security. IPV6 includes security in its basic specification, like encryption and decryption capabilities, and authentication and/privacy of packets. Placing host authentication information at the Internet layer in IPV6 provides considerably more protection to higher protocols and services than what IPV4 offers. Another advantage of IPV6 is in its consideration for real-time applications like video conferencing and streaming audio and video. IPV6 employs a mechanism that assists in special handling and routing of these real-time packets. Again, IPV6 is advantageous in that it also includes plug and play support in standard specification. This makes it easier for movie users to connect machines to the Internet. This also addresses the auto-configurability needs of nomadic personal computing devices and the emerging accelerated technologies both fixed and wireless. Yet, another advantage noted is the presence of a cleaner specification and optimization of the protocol that ensures optimized headers and address formats. This is highly important as the Internet evolves to meet the demands of the changing markets of the future. Finally, IPV6 has transitional flexibility in that; IPV6 can accommodate coexistence on the transitional mechanisms long enough with IPV4 before transition to IPV6 is fully completed. 13 5.0 DETERMINISTIC METHODS AND PARAMETERS Determination of the extent of needed readiness of the Nigerian ISP companies and the Nigerian Internet industry in general, to deploy and use the IPV6 Internet with the actual extent of efficient application and deployment of IPV6 Internet was carried out, using Owerri Municipality in Imo State of Nigeria, as a case study. There were two methods of data acquisition employed in the investigation. These include the primary and secondary methods. The primary method (also called first hand method), involved getting appropriate real information/data from the Internet Service Provider (ISP) companies and network engineers by use of questionnaires, interviews and eye witness accounts. These were backed-up by the secondary method involving the use of documented information/data available on the subject. The results were collated and presented tabularly by use of code keys and assumed percentages based on the chosen code keys conversion, but analyzed proper by use of bar charts and mean calculations. 6.0 RESULTS PRESENTATION, ANAYSIS AND DISCUSSION The ISP companies visited, the specifications of interest areas, and the raw data obtained as at the time of writing this material, are here collated and presented tabularly using the following codes and keys: (a) Codes assigned to visited companies: i) Adesemi Nig. Ltd. X1 ii) Lomasnet Ltd. X2 iii) Asonet Nig. Ltd. X3 iv) Citi Communications Ltd. X4 (b) Analytical conversion keys used: i) (0-19)% too poor ii) (20-39)% poor iii) (40-59)% fair iv) (60-79)% good v) (80-100)% Very good 14 Presentation of the current extent of need and readiness to deploy IPV6 in Nigeria: Specifications (A) Extent of IPV6 awareness and acceptability currently (B) Need and readiness to change to IPV6 (C) Eagerness to go for new services offered by IPV6 (D) Knowledge of IPV6 compatibility with current internet equipments and applications (E) Readiness to foot the bills for IPV6 optimized and implementing equipments and packages – hardwares & softwares) Companies providing data Data provided and reasons (where necessary) X1 Quite new but welcomed. X2 Interesting and is welcome. X3 Quite new and allowed. X4 Quite new and interesting. X1 Comfortable with IPV4 for now (because implementation of IPV6 is costly and clients are not ready yet). X2 Not quite ready because of cost of implementation. X3 Kept in view. X4 X1 About to be considered in the near future. That will be if need be. X2 When implemented, yes. X3 Not quite, for now (because of cost of implementation) X4 X1 Yes, but with time. Not quite confirmed. X2 Some current operating systems and equipments are optimized for IPV6 e.g. windows XP, Linux, Windows 2003 server. X3 Said to need one or two translation mechanisms. X4 Needs some network configurations and management fools in mixed networks. Not yet in need of them except for one or two servers. X1 X2 Undecided for now. X3 Kept for future consideration X4 Yes, but very few of them especially softwares Harmonized data percentages 60% 10% 50% 70% 30% 15 Sampled extent and their implications Good (Appreciated and welcomed) Too poor (Comfortable with IPV4 for now). Fair (New services options interesting enough). Good (Needs some translation and transition mechanisms and optimized applications). Poor (Considered not too necessary for now) Presentation of the current extent of spread and application of IPV6 in Nigeria: Specifications (A) Current Internet distribution in Nigeria (B) Spread of IPV6 Technology and equipments in Nigeria (C) Number of ISPs/users companies fully deploying IPV6 technologies in Nigeria (D) IPV6 applications/services fully running in Nigeria. (E) Efforts towards future improvement on internet address enlargement and spread in Nigeria. Companies providing data Data provided and reasons (where necessary) X1 Concentrated in the highly industrialized and populated cities like Lagos and Port Harcourt. X2 Little live IP addresses in Nigeria generally as congested in USA, followed by Europe and Asia. X3 Live IP addresses more in highly academic, research and industrial places in Nigeria. X4 Not evenly distributed as more goes to places in Nigeria where they are more needed. We don’t really have them per say except for a few IPV6 optimized operating systems. X1 X2 Generally small nationally speaking. X3 Not considered having much of them yet. X4 X1 Not quite till need arises. No known company X1 inclusive. X2 No even fully deployed in most first world countries because of some politics involved. X3 Not known, we have not yet. X4 X1 Not deployed in X4 and doubts if fully deployed in any. Not yet. X2 No known cases yet. X3 No use yet. X4 X1 Applications/services Nil. Nigeria can’t do much but to wait expectantly. X2 Allow things to take their natural course X3 Now known explicit efforts. X4 IANA is calling for the return of unused live IP addresses for re-distribution, but this is quite funny because Nigeria’s chance of getting part of that is too slim. Harmonized data percentages 40% Fair (The few live internet addresses are more concentrated in places with higher demand or needed) 20% Poor (Patronization due to necessity is poor for now). 0% Too poor (No known companies or users fully deployed yet). 0% 16 Sampled extent and their implications 10% Too poor (No known cases of full proof yet) Too poor (Little or no efforts currently) Analysis of the current extent of need and readiness to deploy IPV6 in Nigeria: Estimating the current extent of need and readiness to deploy IPV6 in Nigeria using mean calculation gave: Mean = 60 + 10 + 50 + 70 + 30 5 = 220 5 = 44% (i.e. fair) Analysis of the current extent of spread and application of IPV6 in Nigeria: Estimating the current extent of spread and application of IPV6 in Nigeria using mean calculation gave: Mean = 40 + 20 + 0 + 0 + 10 5 = 17 70 5 = 14% (i.e. too poor) Discussions on the results of analysis/discoveries made: The results of the analysis on data as presented overleaf revealed these two facts about the seemingly general position of the Nigerian Internet Industry as at date: 1) The current extent of need and readiness of the Nigerian Internet industry to deploy IPV6 is fair (about 44%), suggesting an average and encouraging awareness and monitor of global trends in the Internet arena. 2) The current extent of spread and application of IPV6 in the Nigerian Internet Industry is too poor (about 14%), suggesting therefore that IPV6 technologies have very little spread and application in the Nigerian Internet Industry due to reasons like cost of change of equipments and infrastructures, lack of expertise as should be needed, global politics involved in IPV6 roll-out, and other bottlenecks of IPV6 development both presently experienced and those envisaged in future. Therefore, to this end, it is conclusively and generally revealing that IPV6 is yet to be fully deployed and used in Nigeria. This is also a pointer to the extent of global deployability and use of IPV6 Internet till date. Also, from the generalized comparative conclusion – knowing that the world is more-or-less a global village where every issue is as secret as an open newspaper, then it will not be an over statement to say that IPV6 deployment and use globally is quite lacking even when so much has been said and done to encourage its full global deployment. This development is most probably traceable to the USA Internet Industry’s politics, which frustrates the global deployment of IPV6, since they are the highest bearers of IPV4 addresses. Discovered also are some other present and envisaged future bottlenecks and problems of the IPV6 Internet, which are issues of concern to be addressed before IPV6, complete rollout. These present bottlenecks and problems are associated with security, fairness versus scaling, monopoly and delay, difference in IP telephony, disabled applications, caveats and resources and cost of changing network equipments; whereas, the envisaged future problems of IPV6 Internet are perceived to have something to do with traffic engineering technology tumor and complete transition impediments. 18 7.0 CONCLUSION The unfair distribution of IPV4 Internet IP addresses is calling for a redress. An estimated 75% of the IPV4 IP addresses was speculated to have been used up as at the year 2003 and all the steps towards expanding the existing IPV4 addresses and solve the Internet address depletion problem either failed or created their own problems; and yet the real-life constraints of IPV4 Internet such as security, reliability, flexibility and accessibility, refused to let go. Therefore, IPV6 was developed to address and correct all IPV4 shortcomings and that with new features, specifications, forward and backward compatibility as part of its fundamental design considerations – some to equip IPV6 to be able to co-exist with IPV4 in mixed networks [Carpenter and Moore, 2001] until full transition is achieved, while some are for supporting future growths [Edward, 2003] on the Internet. IPV6 undoubtedly allows Internet-based networking technologies to penetrate new sectors, beginning with home networks and the mobile sector. These applications alone represent billions of electronic devices that are potentially connectable to the Internet. Nevertheless, IPV6 development and deployment has introduced some constraints especially financially and materially with their attendant involvement and investment demands on humanware, hardware and software acquisition and subscriptions. These have limited the rate of implementation of IPV6 globally and in Nigeria particularly. Hence, the very poor spread and deployment of IPV6 in the Nigerian Internet industry currently, according to the result of the comparative analysis done so far. However, a big turn around is anticipated as the IPV6 real-life constraints and bottlenecks are improved for good. IPV6 is now a reality. 19 REFERENCES 1. Biemolt, W. (March, 2002); “An overview of the introduction of IPV6 in the Internet: introduction-to-IPV6-Transition-08 (work in progress)”, Draft-ietfngtrans. 2. Bradner, S., and Mankin, A. (1996); “Ipng: Internet Protocol Next Generation”, MA: Addison-Wesley, Reading, p. 6. 3. Bertsekas, D., and Gallager, R. (1992); “Data Networks”, NJ: Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, pp 38-40. 4. Carpenter, B., and Moore, K. (February, 2001); “Connection of IPV6 Domains Via IPV4 Clouds”, RFC 3056. 5. Comer, D., and Stevens, D. 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(2002); “ TCP/IP: Tutorial and Technical Overview”, NJ: Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, pp 41-43. 14. Stallings, W. (July, 1996); “The New Communications, Vol. 34, No. 7, pp 96-108. 15. Stallings, W. (2004); “Data and Computer Communications”, 7 th Edition, Pearson-Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ0758, pp 550-566. 20 Internet Protocol”, IEE 16. Sklar, B. (November, 1993); “Defining, Designing and Evaluating Digital Communication Systems”, IEEE Communications magazine, p 30. 17. Shenker, S. (September, 1995); “Fundamental Design Issues for the Future Internet”, IEEE Journal on selected areas in communications, p. 8. 18. Stevens, W. (1994); “TCP/IP Illustrated: The Protocols”, Volume 1, MA: Addison-Wesley, Reading, p 20. 19. Tsirtsis, G., and Srisuresh, P. (February, 2000); “Network Address Translation – Protocol Translation (NAT-PT)”, RFC 2766. 20. http://www.shore.net /~ws/DCC6e.html 21. http://www.williamStallings.com/Dcc6e.html 21 ACRONYMS IP IPV6 TCP/IPIPV4 IPng LAN MAN WAN PDU SDU PCI ICMP DNS ASCII ISP NAT IPsec QOS UMTS DHCP RH FH AH HMAC ICV ESP SPI SA IKE OSI IPX/SPX ROM OS UDP ICMP - Internet Protocol Internet Protocol Version Six Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol Internet Protocol Version Four Internet Protocol Next Generation Local Area Network Metropolitan Area Network Wide Area Network Protocol Data Unit Service Data Unit Protocol Control Information Internet Control Message Protocol Domain Name Service American Standard Code for Information Interchange Internet Service Providers Network Address Translation Internet Protocol Security Quality of Service Universal Mobile Telecommunication System Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Routing Header Fragmentation Header Authentication Header Hash Message Authentication Code Integrity Check Value Encapsulation Security Payload Security Parameter Index Security Association Internet Key Exchange Open System Interconnection Internet Packet Exchange/Sequence Packet Exchange Read Only Memory Operating System User Datagram protocol Internet Control Message Protocol 22 Academic Backgrounds of Researchers 1. F. K. Opara is a lecturer in the department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of Federal university of Technology Owerri (FUTO); and a major in Data Communication Engineering. He is a researcher on communication-related subject matters. e-mail: kefelop@yahoo.com 2. Etus Chukwuemeka is a graduate of Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Federal university of Technology Owerri (FUTO); and a major in Electronics and and Computer Engineering. He is a researcher on Electronic and Computer related subject matters. e-mail: etuscw@yahoo.com Paper / Manuscript No.: JERD / 2007 / 031 23