IPv6 anycast for simple and effective service-oriented communications

Abstract

Although anycast communication supports service-oriented addresses, many of its current definitions in IPv6 are unclear. Furthermore, since there are no protocol standards or even a consensus on controlling routing, intersegment anycast communications are not yet available. In this article we first review IPv6-based anycast communication. At present, there are several possible applications that are suited to this. We then raise several problems and provide possible solutions to these. Based on this background, we present the Anycast Address Resolving Protocol (AARP) to establish TCP connections with a specific anycast address, and then propose a routing protocol for intersegment anycasts. Our proposed architecture makes anycast addresses.more useful without (or with at most minimal) need for modifications/extensions to existing applications and/or upper-layer protocols.