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Accelerate your IPv6 journey: Introducing DNS64 and NAT64 for the Cross-Cloud Network
Organizations are adopting IPv6 to build distributed applications across hybrid and multicloud environments. A key challenge in this transition is enabling IPv6-only devices to access IPv4 services. Google Cloud is expanding its toolkit by introducing DNS64 and NAT64 to facilitate this transition. These technologies address the gradual nature of IPv6 adoption and the limitations of dual-stack networking. DNS64 and NAT64 allow IPv6-only environments to communicate with legacy IPv4 applications on the internet. This mechanism supports creating future-proof IPv6-only networks and enabling gradual migration. It also ensures continued accessibility of critical IPv4-only business applications. DNS64 synthesizes IPv6 addresses for IPv4 services when AAAA records are not found. NAT64 gateways then translate these synthesized IPv6 addresses back to IPv4 for communication. This process allows IPv6-only clients to seamlessly interact with IPv4 destinations. Setting up DNS64 and NAT64 involves creating VPCs, IPv6-only subnets and VMs, firewall rules, a DNS64 server policy, and a NAT64 gateway.