Support for IPv6

Starting with Data ONTAP 7.3.1, Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is supported on your storage systems network. IPv6 increases the IP address size from 32 bits (in IPv4) to 128 bits. This larger address space provides expanded routing and addressing capabilities.

Data ONTAP 7.3 and earlier releases used IPv4 for all the addressing and networking requirements. However, IPv4 has many limitations, such as limited address space and security. To address these limitations, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) developed a new version of IP, called IPv6.

You can enable the IPv6 option and configure IPv6 addresses on the network interfaces of your storage systems. IPv6 addresses can also be autoconfigured.

• What IPv6 addressing is
  IPv6 addresses can be configured in the network interfaces of your storage system, either manually or automatically. The configuration of IPv6 address depends on the type and scope of the address.
• How to transition from IPv4 to IPv6
  A transition mechanism enables IPv6 hosts and routers to be compatible with IPv4 hosts and routers. Starting with Data ONTAP 7.3.1, dual stack mechanism is used for transitioning from IPv4 to IPv6.
• Enabling or disabling IPv6
  You can enable IPv6 on all the interfaces of your storage system either during setup or when the storage system is in operation. You can also disable IPv6 on your storage system if you want to revert to IPv4 addressing. You can enable IPv6 only for the entire storage system, but not for a network interface or vFiler unit.
• What address autoconfiguration is
  IPv6 defines both a stateful and a stateless address autoconfiguration mechanism. Data ONTAP 7.3.1 onwards supports IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration. The Neighbor Discovery protocol facilitates address autoconfiguration.
• IPv6 address states
  Before and after an IPv6 address is assigned, it goes through various states. These address states are applicable to both manually and automatically configured addresses.
• What Neighbor Discovery is
  The Neighbor Discovery (ND) protocol enables hosts and routers to discover the presence of neighboring IPv6 hosts and routers. ND also helps in identifying the link-layer address of hosts and routers and in performing Duplicate Address Detection (DAD). ND replaces the IPv4 protocols, such as the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Router Discovery, and ICMP Redirect.