[KubeCon EU 2026, Isovalent Booth Session] When IPv6 only cluster meets the real internet

Transcript

1. When IPv6 only cluster meets the real internet Donia Chaiehloudj, Software Engineer & Community
2. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 2 IPv6 sounds like THE way to go • IPv4 addresses are expensive and scarce • Cloud providers charge for IPv4 addresses • IPv6 provides unlimited addresses
3. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 3 Letʼs deploy!
4. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 4 IPv4 still in the game Many services are still IPv4-only:
5. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 5 IPv4 still in the game Many services are still IPv4-only: • GitHub
6. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 6 IPv4 still in the game Many services are still IPv4-only: • GitHub • Docker Hub (partially) • Legacy APIs • Third-party services Your IPv6-only cluster can't access them
7. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 7 NAT64/DNS64 Translate IPv6 traffic to IPv4 at the network layer Pros: • Remains IPv6-only • Transparent to applications Cons: • Complex setup • Additional infrastructure • Performance overhead • Debugging challenges
8. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 8 Cilium on IPv6
9. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 9 Cilium on Dual Stack Run both IPv6 AND IPv4 together Why this is better: • Simple Cilium configuration • Best of both worlds • Gradual IPv6 adoption
10. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 10 Cilium on Dual Stack Demo
11. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 11 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Creation of IPv4 IPv6 is standardised GitHub still IPv4 only 🤯 IPv6 is designed IPv6 is required IPv6 was supposed to replace IPv4 1983 1998 2026 1995 2012 2126
12. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 12 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Creation of IPv4 IPv6 is standardised GitHub still IPv4 only 🤯 IPv6 is designed IPv6 is required IPv6 was supposed to replace IPv4 1983 1998 2026 1995 2012 2126 https://xkcd.com/742/
13. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 13 Key Takeaways • Runs single-stack IPv6 or dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 • Hubble provides insight into IPv6 flows • NAT46/64 support provides a pathway from v4 to v6 • IPv6 support with BGP lets users advertise their IPv6 Pod CIDRs. • Cilium’s IPv6 innovations include support for protocols such as BIG TCP and Segment Routing v6.
14. © 2025 Isovalent. All Rights Reserved. 14