Secure VPNs over IPv6 Networks: An Evaluation and its Integration in a Policy Management Framework

A secure virtual private network -secure VPN- is a private data network that makes use of public communication infrastructures, maintaining privacy through the use of tunnelling and security protocols.Secure VPN technology is widely deployed within IPv4 and seems to be an important and useful security service in IPv6 networks, although it has not been very much considered yet by network operators or companies. This article describes the concepts of secure VPN and IPsec, which is the major technology for this kind of VPNs used today on the Internet. It also provides a survey of currently existing open-source and commercial IPv6-enabled implementations of the IPsec and IKE protocols, as well as a description of the main IPv6-based scenarios where secure VPNs can be applied. Finally this article describes how dynamic IPv6 VPNs based on policies are being deployed over the Euro6IX network, based on the development of a complete PKIv6 infrastructure and a Policy Management System based on the IETF/DMTF approach for a policy framework.