Toward IPv6-only Networking: Deployment Readiness, Enabling Architectures, Operational Challenges, and Future Directions

Abstract

IPv6 adoption has expanded significantly across modern Internet infrastructures, leading to increasing interest in the practical realization of IPv6-only networking. While substantial progress has been achieved in protocol deployment, the successful operation of IPv6-only environments depends not only on the availability of transition technologies but also on the readiness of infrastructure platforms, application ecosystems, enterprise environments, and emerging IoT and edge-computing systems. This survey evaluates IPv6-only deployment readiness across key operational domains, including infrastructure, applications, enterprise networks, IoT ecosystems, and global adoption trends. It further reviews the principal architectures enabling IPv6-only networking, including translation-based technologies, IPv4-as-a-Service (IPv4aaS) solutions, and programmable IPv6 frameworks, while examining the operational challenges associated with their deployment. The analysis highlights important issues related to interoperability, service continuity, operational visibility, reliability, enterprise migration, and security management. Unlike previous surveys that primarily focus on transition mechanisms, performance evaluation, or IPv6 adoption trends, this paper integrates deployment readiness assessment, architectural analysis, and operational considerations within a unified IPv6-only networking perspective. Based on the reviewed literature, several research gaps are identified, including a limited understanding of large-scale enterprise IPv6-only deployment, insufficient evaluation of IPv6-only IoT and edge ecosystems, fragmented security assessment, and the lack of long-term operational and performance studies. The findings provide a comprehensive view of the current state of IPv6-only networking and establish a foundation for future research and deployment strategies.