An IP address is a unique address that identifies a device on the internet or a local network. IP stands for Internet Protocol, which is the set of rules governing the format of data sent via the internet or local network. IP addresses provide a way of doing so and form an essential part of how the internet works.
As the number of connected IP IoT devices increases, enterprises have to deal with the limited address space of IP IoT IPv4. IP IoT IPv6 offers a larger address space, interoperability, and ease of development.
The number of IoT devices, especially in the smart home, is growing at an alarming rate; some estimate that by 2025, there will be about 30 billion IoT devices in the home. To put it another way, this is double the number of IoT devices that will be deployed in 2020.
Users in both industrial and connected home environments will need these products and applications in order to provide viable and profitable services. However, this explosion of technology is putting unprecedented pressure on the network technologies that underpin the Web and Internet.
IP technologies, especially IPv6, will enable this rapid growth. Developers, manufacturers, and IT professionals must use standardized technologies to ensure the interoperability and long-term viability of the Internet of Things.
Connectivity standards and the move to all IP IoT
With the development of the IoT, a variety of connectivity standards have emerged and are currently in use: Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Bluetooth are all designed to communicate efficiently using specific radio frequencies, with additional protocols for pairing and messaging.
Unlike Wi-Fi, these technologies are not IP-based, but as they mature, IP capabilities are being added to all of them. There are several reasons for this move.
Interoperability with other networks and applications
Initially, smart home technologies relied on point-to-point or point-to-center communication. Now they need to communicate directly with other IP-connected applications, especially the cloud, and are easy to develop.
Because IP technologies are highly standardized and there is a large open-source support community, developers have a wide range of tools to build and deploy solutions more quickly. Native support for networking technologies, voice, and video.
Over time, IP technologies have evolved to support a wide range of application traffic, especially as it applies to the smart home and the Internet of Things.
IPv4 is a challenge for IP IoT architectures.
IPv4 and its supporting higher-level protocols, TCP/IP IoT and User Datagram Protocol, have been the backbone of the Internet for decades. However, since 2015, the IPv4 address inventory has been depleted, with only a few struggling addresses here and there.
Today’s IPv4-based home networks rely on a private address space kept by Network Address Translation (NAT), which allows a single public address to handle the hosts behind it in a private address space.
This poses a number of challenges for many IP IoT architectures. With products based on different physical layer technologies, there can be many networks in the smart home, not just a dedicated LAN.
This means that multiple dedicated address spaces are used, preventing simple peer-to-peer communication. While it is possible, workarounds such as relying on NAT session traversal utilities and always-on communication channels are complex and would be difficult for dormant devices or sensors that only get information occasionally.
What about IPv6 in IP IoT?
IPv6 has been around for 20 years now, but IPv4’s staying power is largely due to NAT technology, and many people are hesitant to use IPv4 wholesale in their networking efforts.
IPv6 brings unique benefits to the Internet of Things, which is designed for a future of billions of network connections across thousands of heterogeneous networks.
The size of the address space alone shows that IPv6 in IP IoT is highly advantageous for IP IoT. Full IPv6 deployment will completely eliminate the private address space, allowing for easy two-way communication between devices and applications.
As IPv4 addresses are exhausted, operators will deploy various transition mechanisms such as 6th, use of translated address and port mappings, and use of encapsulated address and port mappings to run IPv4 on IPv6 backbones.
IPv6 also significantly reduces the network overhead of bootstrapping and address allocation. Stateless address autoconfiguration allows nodes to negotiate their own network addresses without the need for central management or allocation.
This can be a huge benefit in environments where there are hundreds of devices on the network and devices are used and unused frequently.
What can be done to more reliably support IPv6 in IP IoT products?
As mentioned earlier, IPv6 is strongly supported by standardization bodies and the open-source community. However, rigorous and thorough testing is absolutely necessary to ensure that IoT and smart home products that use IPv6 will be used by end-users. Important factors to check when considering IPv6 for IP IoT products are as follows.
Connection to cloud services
Can the product connect to and stay up-to-date with the cloud services required for its operation? Will the IPv6 connection work before and after a firmware update?
Bootstrapping
Does the device need to support both IPv4 and IPv6 network connectivity? Can the device boot, receive addresses, and connect to services after reboot or sleep mode?
User Control
How (if at all) will the end-user access the product GUI? Will the local interface and first-time applications work with IPv6?
Basic service interoperability
Will the core protocols require for the product (e.g., DNS, network time protocols) work with IPv6?
These features can be verified through rigorous automated testing. It is important to run these tests on all builds and new firmware to ensure that the underlying IP protocol functionality has not been degraded.
Also, even if the underlying protocol stack (usually implemented from open-source code) is suitable for basic connectivity, there are many factors that can cause a device to perform poorly.
Frequent repetition of such connection tests over time can identify memory leaks and fragmentation that can cause a device to lock up or fail to connect without user intervention.
Ultimately, the prospect of IoT connectivity is likely to last for some time yet. As we move toward a world where smart products become commonplace and even part of the critical infrastructure, considering the transition to IP and IPv6 can help enterprises navigate this beautiful new world.