Created 30 years ago, IPv4 has a 32-bit addressing scheme andcan support approximately 4.3 billion devices connected directly tothe Internet.

Well aware that IPv4 addresses would eventually run out, theIETF created IPv6 as an upgrade to IPv4.

IPv6 features a 128-bit addressing scheme, supports amind-numbing amount of devices and delivers much needed securityand performance improvements.

While the IPv6 protocol has been around for along time, forkliftupgrades to IPv6 were (rightly) seen as expensive and timeconsuming without much practical benefit. However, with the pool ofIPv4 addresses completely exhausted, IPv6 is a trend whose time hascome.

It is well known that most security incidents are caused byhuman error, either as the result of a programming error or throughmisconfiguration, so it comes as no surprise that recent researchby Tufin Technologies revealed that misconfigurations are thegreatest source of firewall-related risk and inefficiencies.

The lack of experience and training for those IT professionalsdealing with IPv6, will only make mistakes more likely, and IPv6address complexity will only exacerbate this because they areextremely difficult to read and do not lend themselves tomemorization. Compare a typical 32-bit IPv4 addresses -192.0.2.31with a 128 bit IPv6 address -2001:db8:31:1:20a:95ff:fef5:246e.

Now do you get it?

Knowing that IPv6 migration will be a fact of life, here aresome measures you can take to ensure migration efforts will notimpede firewall management:

1) Understand what IPv6means to your network, people and vendor partners:Although many potential issues can be avoided by testing IPv6conditions in a lab or by running pilots, as with any ITdeployment, there are some scenarios that even the most savvy ITpeople would not have known to anticipate. The only way your teamwill learn what the issues are, is by experience. For example,network devices or firewalls could become overwhelmed and fail whenused in an IPv6 environment, allowing data traffic to pass withoutfull inspection or resulting in an outage, or not. Talk to yourfirewall and network infrastructure vendors to see where they areat with IPv6 and what sort of resources they can provide to aidwith migration. If you outsource firewall management, get educatedon what your MSSP or service provider is doing for IPv6.

2) Avoidhaving to manually type IPv6 addresses: Because writing IPaddresses manually is a highly error-prone endeavor, you shouldminimize this. If you have to write an address, do it once andwhenever possible, assign a human readable name to it and use thename in all places (firewall rules, policies, ACLs etc.).In orderto minimize the duplication of address definitions, you needconsolidated management systems so that IPv6 addresses are storedon a central repository and can be sourced as needed – for example,host naming should be consolidated across firewalls and routers,even from different vendors. For those organizations runningnext-generation firewalls, incorporate your firewalls with ActiveDirectory to avoid having to manually enter user addresses.

3) Things will go wrong.Be prepared: IPv6 increases complexity,which is already beyond manual control on most enterprise firewallpolicies. But if you plan ahead, when something does happen, youwill be in a good position to troubleshoot. From a process andoperations perspective, the simpler the better. Make sure changesare properly and clearly documented so that anyone can understandwhat the actual change was, why it was made, who made it andwhen.

4) Deploy networkmanagement tools that understand IPv6:Most organizations will be running dual IPv4 and IPv6 networks,known as dual stacks, as they transition. IPv4 and IPv6 cannotcommunicate with each other, so they will need to be deployed intandem until the transition is complete. That means, that for theperiod during which you offer both IPv4 and IPv6, you have to doeverything twice, which among other things, will significantlyincrease the number of firewall changes that will occur in a givenchange window. In addition to having more changes to deal with,IPv6 changes will be more complex. If you have a multi-vendor,multi-type firewall environment, the business case (i.e., time andcost savings) for automating firewall management should beextremely compelling. Look for tools that will help analyze IPv6addresses, objects, rules and ACLs across networks and securitydevices. Additionally, look for network management tools that canprovide reverse lookup for any IPv6 address to its human readablenames. Do not be the person that gets stuck having to manuallytroubleshoot mistyped IPv6 addresses across multiple firewalls.

5) When upgrading or automating,leverage internal and external domain expertise: Chancesare external people you are working with on your IPv6 migrationefforts are working with others as well. Any tips or best practicesspecific to IPv6 migration or in general withthe systems orproducts they work with should be welcomed to ensure that systemsare optimized for future needs. The processes you automateare likely to stick for quite some time – take the time to setthings up in a way that is just aligned with the strengths of theproduct(s) you're deploying, standard operating procedures and theculture of your company and team.

While it may not be of consequence to end users, IPv6 migrationwill be a big deal to enterprise IT and particularly network andnetwork security managers.

IPv6 has been in use for many years, it has been deployed onrelatively few networks. Because people are less familiarwith it, they are less likely to spot mistakes.

With IPv6, security practitioners have a chance to get ahead ofthe game and bake best practices into IPv6 processes and operationsinstead of bolting them on after the fact.

Lessons learned and best practices will come from trial anderror, information sharing, and by supporting industry initiativessuch as IPv6ActNow.com and World IPv6Day. Let's not waste the opportunity to do things right.

Reuven Harrison is CTOat Tufin Technologies in RamatGan, Israel.