Introduction
IPv6 adoption has matured significantly over the past decade. In 2010, the RIPE community published RIPE-554, a procurement guide designed to ensure new ICT equipment could handle IPv6. Five years later, RIPE replaced it with RIPE-772, an updated document that reflected real-world IPv6 deployments and operational lessons learned.
Today, technologies like FortiADC, Fortinet’s Application Delivery Controller, not only comply with RIPE-772 but also provide the advanced performance and security needed to support modern IPv6 environments.
From RIPE-554 to RIPE-772: FortiADC’s IPv6 Compliance
When RIPE-554 was introduced in 2010, its purpose was to help organizations take their first steps beyond IPv4 by requiring that new ICT equipment support the basics of IPv6. It outlined fundamental capabilities such as IPv6 routing, tunneling mechanisms like 6to4 and ISATAP, operating system readiness, and firewall filtering. This checklist was critical for early adoption, even though some of the tools were experimental and later became obsolete.
FortiADC aligned with these requirements from the start, delivering IPv6 routing, dual-stack support, transition technologies, and IPv6-aware security enforcement. As the industry matured, RIPE-772 replaced RIPE-554 in 2015, shifting focus from basic adoption to operational excellence. It emphasized security, performance parity between IPv4 and IPv6, and modern transition methods such as NAT64/DNS64. FortiADC continues to meet and exceed these expectations with stateful IPv6 firewalling, global server load balancing (GSLB), and carrier-grade throughput, ensuring that IPv6 applications perform as reliably and securely as their IPv4 counterparts. In effect, FortiADC not only satisfied the baseline set by RIPE-554 but also fully complies with the more advanced framework of RIPE-772, making it a future-ready solution for enterprises and service providers embracing IPv6.
RIPE-772: IPv6 in the Real World
By 2015, the landscape had changed. IPv6 was no longer a future consideration but a present-day necessity, and RIPE-772 replaced RIPE-554 to address this shift. The new guidance dropped outdated tunneling methods and focused instead on dual-stack deployments and NAT64/DNS64 for compatibility. Security moved to the forefront, requiring equipment to provide stateful IPv6 firewalling, ACLs, and intrusion prevention. DHCPv6 and DNS64 gained stronger emphasis, and vendors were expected to ensure that IPv6 performance matched IPv4, eliminating excuses for slower adoption. RIPE-772 marked the point where IPv6 was expected to be fully integrated and reliable in production networks.
FortiADC and RIPE-772 Compliance
FortiADC aligns closely with the expectations outlined in RIPE-772. It delivers robust IPv6 routing and full-featured load balancing across both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic, enabling smooth operation in dual-stack environments. Its support for NAT64 and DNS64 makes it possible for IPv6-only clients to communicate with IPv4 applications, simplifying the migration process.
Security is built in, with FortiADC enforcing stateful IPv6 policies while extending intrusion prevention, web application firewalling, and DDoS protection to IPv6 traffic. On the application side, FortiADC integrates DNS64 services, GSLB, SSL/TLS termination, and application optimization features with full IPv6 awareness. Importantly, these capabilities deliver carrier-grade performance and high availability, ensuring that IPv6 traffic operates with the same reliability and speed as IPv4.
Conclusion
The move from RIPE-554 to RIPE-772 reflects the journey of IPv6 itself — from a set of minimum requirements to a mature, fully operational standard. FortiADC helps organizations meet and exceed these requirements by combining seamless dual-stack functionality, transition technologies, advanced security, and performance at scale.
For enterprises and service providers preparing for a future defined by IPv6, FortiADC ensures compliance with RIPE-772 while delivering secure and optimized application services today.
