Beijing Olympics Putting IPv6 To The Test

The bandwidth requirements, including the number of connections, are going to be the first real test for this technology. the United States has been using the older IPv4 standard for Internet addresses for decades. Operating systems, network infrastructure and network software in the U.S. are still dependent on IPv4. Because the IPv4 and IPv6 have radically different addressing schemes, a translation has to occur between them for users of the older addressing system to reach the new IP addresses.

Many old operating systems are not capable of receiving the IPv6 addresses. Windows 2000 or below, for example, will require an add-on to access these addresses. Even operating systems like Windows XP and many flavors of Linux that arrive with IPv6 capability do not have it turned on by default.

New operating systems like Vista, Windows Server 2008, Linux 2.6 kernels, and MAC OSX already come with IPv6 turned on. In the Windows kernel, Microsoft uses the Teredo protocol to tunnel packets between IPv4 and IPv6. This is an automatic process that happens at the network layer. 6to4 is another IPv6 to IPv4 routing technology.

Tunneling between different protocols might present security risks on networks that are using both types of IP. IDS products that were designed to parse IPv4 packets can get tricked in the translation process. Servers that are used for collaboration and work with both IP versions can become entry points for hackers as well.