IPv6 will change the way we look at networking and how we use the OSI and networking models. Right now we have many mobile devices connected to their own network not behind a traditional router and firewall. Look at phones or tablets and how they use 4G. They are connected directly to the internet not behind a home router (except when connected to Wifi). They have got to have their own IP of some sorts right?
With IPv6 I can see how we think of networking desolving and moving towards a much broader way of networking. things like NAT and PAT are out. I could even see us doing away with MAC and just having the IPv6 being the way a program connects to our device. With so many IPv6 addresses avail why not? Why do we need to have 2 layers of device "names" and just have the IPv6 handle who is who? In a sense we are completely getting rid of the whole in home network scheme and using outside appoaches for our networking. Someone else is in charge of how our device connects to other devices. I know what you thought when I said "someone else". Yes this is a concern. I can see this and many complications with this approach. I hope to address some of these right now.
For one complication there is security. to have a device connected directly to the internet requires that device to have its own firewall or at least a way to filter out bad requests. The device itself needs to be powerful enough to do its own routing on top of all its own processing. Unless this can be avoided by just having routing as a service. Use the cloud as a service to route traffic and keep things safe. You use the cloud as your defualt gateway so to speak.
To connect to a device that is right in front of you is another problem with this approach. With the traditional way you have an easy way of connecting together and sharing info to computers near by because you are on the same "network". To give a solution just think bigger. instead of connecting to your home router that is so close, you connect to a router cloud outside your home. The cloud keeps your IPv6 that tells who you are.
I hope you came to this conclusion too: but what if we are moving around? To explain routers send traffic to networks and not clients. It is kind of like the postal service. when you send a letter and it arrives at the first "hop" or postal office all they look at is the zip code and send it to the main office for that zip code. It is then routed to the correct address at that office. Same goes for networks. If I send an email from my computer right now to gmail, it will find out where gmail network is send it on its way through hops till it gets to the router with that network, and then that router will send it to the correct server hosting Gmail. Of course there is more to this example but essentially that is what is happening.
SO...what if we are moving around? Our IPv6 address moves with us....in the way we network now we had a MAC and that MAC was assigned an IP of the network we are attached to to communicate with the outside. In my proposed model This seems like it wouldn't work. This is where connection speed and the cloud comes to play. If you are connected to the could having it do your routing then your device talks to your cloud. So to keep it simple: the cloud keeps up where you are going and routes you to your desinations. The cloud finds out how to get to you and the device gets to find out what routes are best.
This is entirely a new model of networking. I hope I have made my self clear. I am sure I will revist this sometime soon and revise how I get the idea acrossed. I wrote this in terms of the audience already knowing a little about how the OSI and networking models work.
