v6ops R. Pang, Ed.
Internet-Draft J. Zhao, Ed.
Intended status: Standards Track China Unicom
Expires: 4 September 2025 M. Jin, Ed.
Huawei
S. Zhang, Ed.
China Unicom
3 March 2025
IPv6 Network Deployment Monitoring and Analysis
draft-pang-v6ops-ipv6-monitoring-deployment-00
Abstract
This document proposes an IPv6 network end-to-end monitoring and
analysis framework. The aim is to address key issues existing in
current IPv6 deployment monitoring, such as limited coverage,
insufficient depth of analysis, and lack of cross-domain
collaboration.
Status of This Memo
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Current IPv6 Deployment Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Current Approaches to Monitoring IPv6 Deployment . . . . 4
2.1.1. Fragmented Monitoring Coverage . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.2. Single-Dimensional Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.3. Lack of Cross-Domain Correlation . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.4. Insufficient In-Depth Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.5. Limited Dynamic Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. IPv6 Network deployment End to End Monitoring and Analysis . 5
3.1. Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1.1. Cross-Domain Data Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.2. Multidimensional Analysis Methodology . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.3. Application System Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.4. User-Side Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.5. Key Performance Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2. Function Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Use cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1. Home terminals and router Traffic Analysis . . . . . . . 9
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
The emergence of IPv6 can be traced back to the 1990s, when the
development of IPv6 was initiated by the Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF) to solve the problem of IPv4 address exhaustion. In
1998, the IPv6 protocol specification was published. With IPv6
adoption accelerating over the past years, the IPv6 protocol was
elevated to be a Internet Standard [RFC8200] in 2017.
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This document proposes an IPv6 end-to-end monitoring and analysis
framework. The aim is to address key issues existing in current IPv6
deployment monitoring, such as limited coverage, insufficient depth
of analysis, and lack of cross-domain collaboration. Through
defining standardized data collection interfaces, multi-dimensional
quality assessment metrics, and cross-domain correlation analysis
models, this framework enables the assessment of IPv6 deployment
quality and problem location across the entire cloud-networ-edge-
terminal link.
1.1. Current IPv6 Deployment Status
In today's digital age, the deployment of IPv6 has become a core
driving force for network development. With the continuous expansion
of network scale and the emergence of new applications, the vast
address space, enhanced security, and improved network performance of
IPv6 have made it a key element in network evolution. How to better
deploy and promote IPv6 networks has become a widely concerned issue.
As of 2023, significant strides have been made in the global
deployment of IPv6. According to the statistics from the "Global
IPv6 Development Report 2024", in 2023 the deployment of IPv6
networks significantly accelerated, breaking through the 30% mark in
global coverage for the first time. Among leading countries, the
IPv6 coverage rate has reached or approached 70%, and the percentage
of IPv6 mobile traffic has surpassed that of IPv4.
[RFC9386] presents the state of IPv6 network deployment in 2022, and
its Section 5 lists common challenges, such as transition mechanisms,
network management and operation, performance, and customer
experience. 'ETSI-GR-IPE-001' also discusses the existing gaps in
IPv6-related use cases.
2. Problem Statement
Although current analyses of insufficient IPv6 network deployment
often focus on technical gaps, there is a lack of tools that can
support end-to-end monitoring and analysis across clouds, networks,
edges, and terminals from a practical network perspective. This gap
makes it impossible to conduct multidimensional and fine-grained
analyses of the shortcomings in IPv6 deployment.
For example, most network domains are currently managed
independently, focusing only on the shortcomings and quality issues
of IPv6 deployment within a single management domain. They are
unable to directly analyze data correlation between domains, making
it difficult to accurately locate network quality issues
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2.1. Current Approaches to Monitoring IPv6 Deployment
Existing IPv6 deployment monitoring approaches include (Maybe not all
are covered):
* Internet Society Pulse: Curating information about levels of IPv6
adoption in countries and networks around the world.
* Akamai IPv6 Adoption Visualization: Reviewing IPv6 adoption trends
at a country or network level.
* APNIC IPv6 Measurement: Providing an interactive map that users
can click on to see the IPv6 deployment rate in a particular
country.
* Cloudflare IPv6 Adoption Trends: Offering insights into IPv6
adoption across the Internet.
* Cisco 6lab IPv6: Displaying IPv6 prefix data.
* Regional or National Monitoring Platforms: Examples include the NZ
IPv6, the RIPE NCC IPv6 Statistics, and the USG IPv6 & DNSSEC
External Service Deployment Status, among others.
The aforementioned tools are capable of providing effective
statistics and visualization of IPv6 support levels. However, they
do not adequately address the key problems that currently exist. The
specific deficiencies are presented in the following five aspects.
2.1.1. Fragmented Monitoring Coverage
Existing monitoring points are concentrated in the backbone network
[RFC7707], lacking fine-grained coverage of terminals and
applications.
2.1.2. Single-Dimensional Evaluation
It mainly relies on basic indicators such as connection availability
[RFC9099] and address allocation rate, lacking a comprehensive
assessment of service continuity, transmission quality, Network
Element Readiness, Active IPv6 Connections, etc.
2.1.3. Lack of Cross-Domain Correlation
The monitoring data of each network domain is isolated, making it
impossible to conduct correlation analysis of end-to-end traffic
paths [RFC9312].
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2.1.4. Insufficient In-Depth Analysis
For instance, the IPv6 transformation in some private network
applications is not thorough enough, with internal application
systems yet to be upgraded. This results in secondary and tertiary
links, as well as multimedia content traffic, still predominantly
relying on IPv4. However, there is a lack of effective deep
monitoring methods to oversee these connections.
2.1.5. Limited Dynamic Prediction
Existing models find it difficult to quantify the impact of external
factors such as policies and regulations, user behavior patterns, and
market dynamics on the evolution of IPv6.
3. IPv6 Network deployment End to End Monitoring and Analysis
As a network operator, we specify an architectural framework for IPv6
end-to-end monitoring and analysis systems, defining a standardized
methodology for cross-domain data correlation, multidimensional
traffic analysis, and quality assessment across cloud-network-edge-
device ecosystems.
The framework establishes key performance indicators (KPIs),
monitoring interfaces, and analyzing procedures to address IPv6
deployment challenges in heterogeneous network environments.
This framework addresses these gaps through standardized data
collection methods and multidimensional analysis techniques.
3.1. Framework
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Monitoring and Analysis platform |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|
------------->---------------------->----|----------<-----------------<---------
| | | |
| | | |
+-----------------+ +----------------+ +--------------------+ +--------------+
| Home Network |---------| Mobile Network |--------| IP bearer network |-------| Application |
+-----------------+ +----------------+ +--------------------+ +--------------+
Figure 1: IPv6 Network End to End Monitoring and Analysis Platform
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3.1.1. Cross-Domain Data Integration
The framework defines four critical domains. By connecting the
monitoring subsystems in various fields of cloud, network, edge, and
terminal, end-to-end data integration across multiple links can be
achieved. * Home Network Domain: - Home gateway IPv6 capabilities -
End-device Protocol Stack Status
* Mobile Network Domain:
- Network migration flows
- Quality
- Network migration applications
- End-device Protocol Stack Status
* IP bearer network Domain:
- Home broadband and mobile network traffic flows
- Dedicated line traffic flow direction
* Application Domain:
- IPv6 service availability
Support multiple data collection methods (e.g., Kafka/ SFTP
[RFC9132], NetFlow [RFC3954] /NetStream [RFC5130], telemetry
[RFC9232]) with protocol-specific configurations. Additionally, if a
real-time traffic collection method is required, the Deploy IPFIX
exporters [RFC7011] at strategic nodes for flow data capture.
3.1.2. Multidimensional Analysis Methodology
* Network Traffic Analysis
- Flow pattern recognition at critical nodes
- IPv6/IPv4 traffic ratio trending
- Subsystem-level attribution analysis
* Inter-Network Analysis
- Regional traffic matrix construction
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- Flow direction analysis
* Application-Centric Analysis
- Cross-domain service topology mapping
- Quality-of-Experience (QoE) analysis
- Application-specific traffic distribution
* Restricted Area Analysis
- We formulate a multi-dimensional problem identification and
discovery program for the network side, user side and
application side, and investigate possible influencing factors
at each level.
3.1.3. Application System Monitoring
* IPv6 Support Assessment
- Multi-layer link accessibility
- Secondary and tertiary link support
- DNS resolution capability
o AAAA record resolution rate
o Robustness of recursive and iterative query mechanisms
* Performance Measurement
- IPv6 connection establishment time
- Application response time under IPv6
- Throughput comparison (IPv6 vs IPv4)
3.1.4. User-Side Monitoring
* End-Device Monitoring
- IPv6 stack implementation verification
- Protocol preference analysis
* Quality of Experience
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- Application-specific performance metrics
- Dual-stack quality differentials
3.1.5. Key Performance Indicators
* Readiness Indicators
- Network Element Readiness
- Application Readiness
- Infrastructure Readiness
- Network Readiness
- Cloud Readiness
* Operational Metrics
- IPv6 Traffic
- Active IPv6 Connections
* Quality Metrics
- DNS Resolution Performance
- End-to-End Latency
- Packet Loss Ratio
3.2. Function Description
* Quantify IPv6 deployment maturity through composite indices.
* Perform root-cause analysis across domains.
* Optimize development mechanisms based on Key Performance
Indicators.
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4. Use cases
## User Network Quality Question Positioning When User A experiences
network congestion while playing cloud-based games at home, it
affects the gaming experience. To identify the cause, it is
necessary to collect performance data from each network segment for
quality localization. However, current independent management of
network domains prevents direct data correlation. The network
segments are as follows: N1 (terminal device to ONT), N2 (ONT to
BRAS), and N3 (BRAS to application side).
+-----------------+ +--------------+ +----------------+ +--------------+
| Terminal device |--------------| ONT |-------------| BRAS |------------| APP |
+-----------------+ +--------------+ +----------------+ +--------------+
|<--------------------------->|<---------------------------->|<--------------------------->|
N1 N2 N3
Figure 2: Network schematic diagram based on home broadband
network access application
The end-to-end monitoring capabilities of the platform enable
comprehensive data correlation and analysis, allowing for precise
localization of issues and significantly enhancing the efficiency and
effectiveness of network quality management. By leveraging an IPv6
end-to-end network monitoring and analysis platform, we collected
latency and packet loss data from N1, N2, and N3 network segments.
The platform applies a metric model to precisely identify quality
issues. The analysis revealed that the congestion in the critical
path of N3 was the root cause of the problem. Specifically, the CDN
content scheduling was switched from a local server to a remote
server, which resulted in the transmission path requiring cross-
network scheduling. Due to the high latency and packet loss rate of
the inter-network links, the end-to-end latency and packet loss rate
increased significantly.
4.1. Home terminals and router Traffic Analysis
Home terminals and routers, as the "last kilometer" for users to
access the Internet, play a crucial role in user experience with
regard to their IPv6 support. Take a popular video application as an
example. It has a large number of users in both mobile and home
network environments. Within the statistical time period, the
proportion of IPv6 traffic generated by mobile network users in the
application is much higher than that of home network users. After a
systematic analysis from multiple dimensions including the user side,
network side, and application side, it was found that the IPv6
support of home terminals is insufficient.
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5. Security Considerations
The monitoring system must implement: - Role-based access control -
Anonymization of user-specific data - Secure data transmission
protocols - Integrity verification for collected metrics
6. IANA Considerations
TBD.
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC8200] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200>.
7.2. Informative References
[RFC9386] Fioccola, G., Volpato, P., Palet Martinez, J., Mishra, G.,
and C. Xie, "IPv6 Deployment Status", RFC 9386,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9386, April 2023,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9386>.
[RFC7707] Gont, F. and T. Chown, "Network Reconnaissance in IPv6
Networks", RFC 7707, DOI 10.17487/RFC7707, March 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7707>.
[RFC9099] Vyncke, É., Chittimaneni, K., Kaeo, M., and E. Rey,
"Operational Security Considerations for IPv6 Networks",
RFC 9099, DOI 10.17487/RFC9099, August 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9099>.
[RFC9312] Kühlewind, M. and B. Trammell, "Manageability of the QUIC
Transport Protocol", RFC 9312, DOI 10.17487/RFC9312,
September 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9312>.
[RFC9132] Boucadair, M., Ed., Shallow, J., and T. Reddy.K,
"Distributed Denial-of-Service Open Threat Signaling
(DOTS) Signal Channel Specification", RFC 9132,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9132, September 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9132>.
[RFC3954] Claise, B., Ed., "Cisco Systems NetFlow Services Export
Version 9", RFC 3954, DOI 10.17487/RFC3954, October 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3954>.
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[RFC5130] Previdi, S., Shand, M., Ed., and C. Martin, "A Policy
Control Mechanism in IS-IS Using Administrative Tags",
RFC 5130, DOI 10.17487/RFC5130, February 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5130>.
[RFC9232] Song, H., Qin, F., Martinez-Julia, P., Ciavaglia, L., and
A. Wang, "Network Telemetry Framework", RFC 9232,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9232, May 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9232>.
[RFC7011] Claise, B., Ed., Trammell, B., Ed., and P. Aitken,
"Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX)
Protocol for the Exchange of Flow Information", STD 77,
RFC 7011, DOI 10.17487/RFC7011, September 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7011>.
Authors' Addresses
Ran Pang (editor)
China Unicom
Beijing
China
Email: pangran@chinaunicom.cn
Jing Zhao (editor)
China Unicom
Beijing
China
Email: zhaoj501@chinaunicom.cn
Mingshuang Jin (editor)
Huawei
Beijing
China
Email: jinmingshuang@huawei.com
Shuai Zhang (editor)
China Unicom
Beijing
China
Email: zhangs366@chinaunicom.cn
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