[Term of the Day]: NAT64

Term of the Day

"Network Address Translation 64"

Definition — What is NAT64?

As you know, NAT is a mechanism of taking all private IP addresses and hiding them behind a pool of public addresses. NAT64 is a related technology that provides a way to transition to IPv6 while you still need to communicate with IPv4 networks. Meaning, it enables IPv6 clients to access IPv4 servers and vice versa.

IPv4 is the fourth version of the internet protocol that has been in use since the year 1981. Due to the exhaustion of available IPv4 addresses, service providers are motivated to find possibilities of converting their subscriber communications to IPv6. Though ISPs have enough IPv6 addresses, they are not really helpful. Because IPv6 clients can only visit IPv6 sites and the percentage of all domain names that have IPv6 records is only 2%. This means that the rest of the internet is out of reach for clients that have IPv6 addresses only.

Since IPv6 is not backward compatible with IPv4, NAT64 has come as a boon for service providers. Check this article to learn more about NAT64.