Design and implementation of routing protocols for IPv6 global anycast communications

Anycast is a new IPv6 feature that supports service–oriented address assignments in IPv6 networks. However, because there are no protocol standards or even consensus on routing protocols, inter–segment anycast communications are not yet available. In this paper, we first discuss problems and solutions on inter–segment anycast communications. Based on our findings, we propose two routing protocols for inter–segment anycast to support anycast–oriented communication. We also implement the proposed routing protocols in an experimental environment and verify that they work correctly. We also compare the proposed routing protocols and discuss which is most suited to reducing overheads as much as possible.