Glossary¶
Technical Terms and Acronyms¶
This glossary provides definitions for key terms, acronyms, and concepts used throughout the IPv6 Migration Guide.
A¶
ACL (Access Control List) — Packet filtering rules applied to router/switch interfaces to permit or deny traffic based on source/destination IP, port, protocol.
ALG (Application Layer Gateway) — NAT helper that modifies embedded IP addresses in application protocols (FTP, SIP, H.323).
Anycast — Routing technique where multiple servers share the same IP address; requests route to the nearest instance.
AppDynamics — Cisco application performance monitoring (APM) platform for distributed application visibility.
ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) — Regional internet registry (RIR) for North America responsible for IPv4/IPv6 address allocations.
B¶
BFD (Bidirectional Forwarding Detection) — Lightweight protocol for sub-second failure detection between network devices.
BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) — Path-vector routing protocol for inter-domain routing; de facto standard for internet and WAN routing.
Brownfield Deployment — Network implementation in an existing environment (vs. greenfield = new deployment).
C¶
CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) — Security enforcement point between cloud service consumers and providers (SaaS visibility/control).
Catalyst Center (DNAC) — Cisco DNA Center; centralized management platform for campus networks, SD-Access fabric orchestration.
CDR (Call Detail Record) — Log of call metadata (caller/callee, duration, timestamp) for billing and analysis.
CUBE (Cisco Unified Border Element) — Session border controller (SBC) for voice/video traffic between enterprise and service provider.
D¶
DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) — Cyberattack overwhelming targets with traffic from multiple sources.
DHCPv6 (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6) — DHCP variant for IPv6 address assignment, DNS configuration.
DNAC — See Catalyst Center.
DNS64 — DNS mechanism translating AAAA (IPv6) queries to A (IPv4) records for NAT64 scenarios.
DSCP (Differentiated Services Code Point) — 6-bit field in IP header for QoS classification and traffic prioritization.
Dual-Stack — Network configuration running both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols simultaneously.
E¶
EID (Endpoint Identifier) — In LISP, the IP address identifying an endpoint independent of its location.
Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) — Cisco technology detecting malware in encrypted traffic without decryption (passive monitoring).
ExpressRoute — Microsoft Azure dedicated private connectivity service (equivalent to AWS Direct Connect).
F¶
Fabric — SD-Access network architecture using LISP control plane and VXLAN data plane for automated, policy-driven networking.
FNF (Flexible NetFlow) — Cisco NetFlow variant with customizable flow record definitions and export formats.
G¶
gNMI (gRPC Network Management Interface) — YANG-based network management protocol using gRPC for streaming telemetry.
Greenfield Deployment — Network implementation in a new environment with no legacy constraints.
H¶
HA (High Availability) — System design minimizing downtime through redundancy (active/standby or active/active).
HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol) — Cisco first-hop redundancy protocol for gateway failover.
I¶
IPAM (IP Address Management) — System for planning, tracking, and managing IP address allocations.
IPsec (Internet Protocol Security) — Protocol suite for encrypting and authenticating IP packets (used in VPNs).
ISE (Identity Services Engine) — Cisco platform for network access control (NAC), TrustSec policy enforcement, and guest management.
IVR (Interactive Voice Response) — Automated phone system for caller self-service and routing.
L¶
LISP (Locator/ID Separation Protocol) — Control plane protocol in SD-Access fabric mapping endpoint IDs to network locations (RLOCs).
M¶
MAB (MAC Authentication Bypass) — 802.1X fallback authenticating devices via MAC address lookup (for non-802.1X-capable devices).
MCP (Model Context Protocol) — Protocol for connecting AI assistants to external data sources and tools.
MDT (Model-Driven Telemetry) — Network telemetry push model using YANG data models for structured, real-time metrics.
Micro-Segmentation — Fine-grained network segmentation applying per-endpoint policies (vs. VLAN-level segmentation).
MLO (Multi-Link Operation) — WiFi 7 feature using multiple frequency bands simultaneously for aggregated bandwidth and low latency.
MOS (Mean Opinion Score) — Voice quality metric (1-5 scale) based on listener perception; target for enterprise voice: 4.0+.
N¶
NAT64 — Protocol translation converting IPv6 packets to IPv4 for IPv6-only clients accessing IPv4-only services.
NDP (Neighbor Discovery Protocol) — IPv6 protocol replacing ARP for address resolution, router discovery, duplicate address detection.
NGFW (Next-Generation Firewall) — Stateful firewall with deep packet inspection, IPS, application awareness, threat intelligence.
O¶
OMP (Overlay Management Protocol) — SD-WAN control plane protocol for route exchange between vManage controllers and WAN edge routers.
OSPFv3 — OSPF version 3; link-state routing protocol extended for IPv6 support.
P¶
PagerDuty — Incident management platform for alerting, escalation, and on-call scheduling.
PIM (Protocol Independent Multicast) — Multicast routing protocol family (PIM-SM, PIM-DM, PIM-SSM).
pxGrid (Platform Exchange Grid) — Cisco ISE integration framework sharing context (SGTs, endpoint data) with third-party systems.
Q¶
QoS (Quality of Service) — Traffic prioritization mechanisms ensuring bandwidth, latency, jitter SLAs for critical applications (voice, video).
R¶
RA (Router Advertisement) — ICMPv6 message from routers advertising prefix, default gateway, and network parameters for SLAAC.
RLOC (Routing Locator) — In LISP, the network location of an endpoint (where it's physically connected).
RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol) — Protocol for delivering audio/video streams (used in VoIP, video conferencing).
S¶
SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) — Cloud-delivered security framework combining SD-WAN, SWG, CASB, FWaaS, ZTNA.
SBC (Session Border Controller) — See CUBE.
SD-Access — Cisco Software-Defined Access; campus fabric architecture using LISP + VXLAN + TrustSec for automated policy enforcement.
SD-WAN — Software-Defined Wide Area Network; centrally managed WAN architecture with application-aware routing and multi-transport support.
SGT (Scalable Group Tag) — 16-bit tag in Cisco TrustSec identifying user/device group for policy enforcement independent of IP address or VLAN.
SIG (Secure Internet Gateway) — Cloud-based security service inspecting internet-bound traffic (part of SASE/SSE).
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) — Signaling protocol for VoIP call setup, modification, and teardown.
SLAAC (Stateless Address Autoconfiguration) — IPv6 mechanism allowing hosts to self-configure addresses from router advertisements (no DHCP server required).
SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) — Platform automating incident response workflows (block IP, quarantine host, create ticket).
SRTP (Secure Real-time Transport Protocol) — RTP with encryption for voice/video privacy.
SRST (Survivability Remote Site Telephony) — Cisco feature providing local call processing during WAN failure.
SSE (Security Service Edge) — Security components of SASE (SWG, CASB, FWaaS, ZTNA) without SD-WAN networking.
T¶
Talos — Cisco threat intelligence organization providing real-time threat feeds, malware analysis, vulnerability research.
ThousandEyes — Network intelligence platform for internet/cloud/WAN path visibility, synthetic monitoring, BGP routing analysis.
TrustSec — Cisco security architecture using SGTs for software-defined segmentation and policy enforcement.
V¶
Vertex AI — Google Cloud Platform managed machine learning service for training and deploying ML models.
VN (Virtual Network) — Layer 3 segmentation construct in SD-Access fabric (similar to VRF in traditional networks).
VNI (VXLAN Network Identifier) — 24-bit identifier in VXLAN header segregating traffic across overlay networks.
VPN (Virtual Private Network) — In SD-WAN context, a routing domain (VRF) separating traffic types (VPN 0 = transport, VPN 10+ = service-side).
VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol) — Open-standard first-hop redundancy protocol for gateway failover.
VXLAN (Virtual Extensible LAN) — Overlay encapsulation protocol extending Layer 2 networks over Layer 3 infrastructure (used in SD-Access data plane).
W¶
WAN (Wide Area Network) — Network connecting geographically dispersed sites (MPLS, internet, leased lines).
WebAuth (Web Authentication) — Captive portal authentication method for guest/BYOD access (802.1X alternative).
WLC (Wireless LAN Controller) — Centralized management platform for enterprise WiFi access points.
Z¶
Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP) — Automated device onboarding without manual configuration (device boots, calls home, downloads config).
Zero-Trust — Security model assuming no implicit trust; continuously verify every access attempt regardless of location.
ZTNA (Zero Trust Network Access) — Identity-centric remote access replacing traditional VPNs with application-level access controls.
IPv6-Specific Terms¶
EUI-64 — Modified EUI-64 format converting MAC address to IPv6 interface identifier (deprecated for privacy; SLAAC privacy extensions preferred).
GUA (Global Unicast Address) — Publicly routable IPv6 address (equivalent to public IPv4).
Link-Local Address — IPv6 address valid only on local network segment (fe80::/10 prefix); used for NDP, routing protocols.
Prefix Delegation — DHCPv6 mechanism assigning IPv6 prefixes to routers (common in ISP environments).
Privacy Extensions (RFC 4941) — SLAAC variant generating temporary random interface IDs for outbound connections (privacy vs. stable EUI-64 addresses).
ULA (Unique Local Address) — IPv6 private address (fc00::/7 prefix); equivalent to RFC 1918 private IPv4.
For official definitions, consult IETF RFCs, Cisco documentation, and vendor glossaries.