Virtual World "Express System" Upgraded Again, What is IPv6+?

 This article is reprinted from the website of Lei Feng, please apply for authorization at the official website of Lei Feng. During the MWC22 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Zhao Zhipeng, vice president of Huawei's data communication product line, mentioned in his keynote speech at the IPv6 Forum that IPv6+ has been commercially used in 100+ industries worldwide, from interconnection of everyone to interconnection of everything, effectively supporting the digital development of various industries such as finance, manufacturing, energy, education and healthcare. As the era of interconnection of everything gets closer and closer, people can't help but be curious about the "driving force" behind IPv6+: What exactly is IPv6+? With the continuous development of technology, the world is divided by the Internet: people call the offline world the physical world and the online world the virtual world. In the physical world, each person has his or her own marker, such as an ID card. The IP address is the identity card in the virtual world, and the Internet is a "courier system", with the IP protocol being the "workflow and system" of the courier system. All the information we need to deliver, including text, pictures, audio, video, etc., need to be packaged into a "courier package", and then transported through the courier system to the final destination. After the birth of the Internet, the long-standing use of v4 version of the IP protocol, known as IPv4. we can understand it as the first generation of courier system. Later, with the rapid development of the Internet, the original IPv4 revealed many problems, and the "courier system" was upgraded to the second generation, introducing MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) technology. By now, the challenges facing the Internet have far exceeded the capacity of the second-generation Express Delivery System. The third generation of "express delivery system" based on IPv6 and IPv6+ has made its debut. IPv6 is Internet Protocol version 6, the next generation IP protocol designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to replace IPv4. The problem of insufficient IPv4 addresses has severely restricted the application and development of the Internet. The use of IPv6 solves the problem of the number of network address resources by assigning an IP address to every grain of sand on the planet. IPv6+ is an enhanced innovation of IPv6, a comprehensive upgrade of IPv6-based network capabilities. In the IPv6 White Paper released by ETSI in August 2020, ETSI believes that IPv6+ includes IPv6-based protocol innovations and combines IPv6 and AI. The protocol innovation such as SRv6 is represented by the combination of network intelligence innovation technologies such as network analysis and intelligent tuning to achieve intelligent path planning. Rapid service deployment, operation and maintenance automation, quality visualization, SLA guarantee, application awareness, etc. Meanwhile, in the Gap Analysis report released by ETSI in August 2021, ETSI concluded that IPv6+ improves IP network capabilities in six dimensions: ultra-wide, wide connectivity, certainty, low latency, automation and security. The introduction of IPv6 and IPv6+ is creating a third-generation "express system" for the future. Based on the "courier system" of IPv6, each user has his or her own identity mark, and the courier can directly deliver the courier to the user. This eliminates the need for secondary delivery by gatekeepers or courier counters, reducing the risk of lost courier packages and simplifying the process. The second major improvement of IPv6 is the upgrade of "Express Package", which has a longer message header and can record more contents and information. In other words, we can put more labels on the "express package" to identify the nature of the goods in the carton, such as heavy goods, fragile goods, emergency goods, etc. The "courier system" can quickly determine the services required for this express parcel, such as the need for expediting, the need for careful storage, etc. In this way, the "courier company" can quickly determine the services required for this express parcel. In this way, the courier company can provide more refined services to different customers and adopt differentiated rates according to the information displayed on the package. "The courier company can also take a boutique route and provide exclusive courier channels to realize the exclusive use of resources for high-end users. Likewise, because IPv6+ provides a comprehensive capability upgrade on IPv6, it can accurately identify IPv6 packet attributes and provide corresponding services, thus helping operators to better grasp the data situation in the entire network and better deploy and allocate resources. First, IPv6+ upgrades navigation capability The transportation path of traditional "express delivery system" is relatively fixed and rigid. From the starting point to the end point, the transport vehicle passes through each intersection, and the intersection specifies the direction of the next step forward. By combining IPv6 with SR (Segment Routing) technology and SDN (Software Defined Network) technology, the path can be optimally planned. That is to say, when the express parcel is sent out, the best path from the origin to the destination is already obtained from the management center. Each time the road selection is carried out in accordance with the planning, it can avoid congestion and detours. The superb path scheduling capability can greatly improve efficiency. Second, IPv6+ can provide a dedicated channel for business For example, if there is a lot of demand for video granular transmission from location A to location B, then a video granular service lane can be established to better meet the transmission demand. This is like the demand for seafood transportation from A to B, so the courier company will purchase more cold chain transport vehicles and devote them to this line to make more profits. Third, IPv6+ upgrades network operation and maintenance capabilities First of all, centralized management, IPv6+ can easily convert the configuration intention into scripts and automatically deploy them to each network node. After the introduction of AI, it can automatically analyze the failure phenomenon and find the cause faster, and also proactively identify the potential failure risk in the network in advance based on the learning of the failure model to achieve incident prevention. Centralized management + AI management significantly reduces the difficulty of network maintenance, improves operation and maintenance efficiency, and reduces maintenance costs. Fourth, the security defense capability of IPv6+ has been greatly improved compared with IPv4, truly realizing the integrated defense of cloud, network and security. In traditional networks, the scarcity of IPv4 addresses has led to the existence of a large number of private networks, making it difficult to trace the source of malicious behaviors. It is like a bad guy hiding in the dark, sending out problematic packages and causing damage to the courier system, but there is no way to find out who did it. IPv6+ enabled networks can use public addresses instead of private addresses, which means that every package transported in the "express delivery system" has real and traceable sender information. Without the disguise of the private network, sabotage will have no place to hide. The upgraded courier package (data message structure) also greatly increases the difficulty for vandals to maliciously forge and eavesdrop on the package, enhancing the security and privacy of the package. In short, IPv6+ will support the next generation of high-speed, efficient, flexible and intelligent Internet upgrades. It can provide differentiated service capabilities to meet the application needs of thousands of industries, adapt to the business carrying needs of different industries, support the digital transformation of each industry, help upgrade the consumer Internet to the industrial Internet, and promote the development of the entire digital economy.