IPSec Traffic Overhead Analysis in Dual Stack 1Pv4/1Pv6 Transition Mechanisms

Abstract

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the next generation of Internet Protocol proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to supplant the current Internet Protocol version 4 (/Pv4). Lack of security below the application layer in IPv4 is one of the reasons why there is a need for a new Internet Protocol. IPv6 has built-in support for the Internet Protocol Security protocol (IPSec). IPSec is an Internet standard that is designed to provide data confidentiality, integrity and the authentication through the use of the Authentication Header (AH) and Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) protocols. This paper reports work done in evaluating the implications of the compulsory use of IPSec on the traffic performance of the dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 computer network, as this adds additional headers on the packets.