Preface

Abstract

Studies on the IPv6 protocol began in the early 1990s in The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). One of the main reasons for initiating this work at the standardization body was a prediction on accelerated IPv4 address space consumption in the near future and limited free address space available for new allocations. Current forecasts on the IPv4 address exhaustion made by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) indicate that these addresses will run out in May 2011 (http://inetcore.com/project/ipv4ec/index_en.html).
The use of the IP protocol in new application areas, such as mobile phones or the Internet of Things has forced increased budget and efforts on the development of the IPv6 protocol and services and applications associated with it. At the same time, work on acceleration of migration processes, implementation of IPv6 in telecommunication operators’ networks and end-user operating systems was intensified.
Transformation from IPv4 into IPv6 is one of short-term aims to be achieved in Europe. To accelerate this process in Poland, we have devoted one of work packages of a national project entitled Future Internet Engineering project (http://www.iip.net.pl/) to recommend best practices and to develop a set of tools supporting this transformation. The partners involved in this work package are from the following organizations: Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center, Gdańsk University of Technology, National Institute of Telecommunications in Warsaw, AGH University of Technology, Wrocław University of Technology and Warsaw University of Technology.
This issue of the Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology contains four papers related to this project as well as paper written by S. Kukliński, P. Radziszewski and J. Wytrębowicz, focused on the development of the IPv6 technology and practical results achieved. (...)