Dual stack

Dual stack is the most direct transition approach. A network node that supports both IPv4 and IPv6 is a dual-stack node. A dual-stack node configured with an IPv4 address and an IPv6 address can forward both IPv4 and IPv6 packets. An application that supports both IPv4 and IPv6 prefers IPv6 at the network layer.

Dual stack is suitable for communication between IPv4 nodes or between IPv6 nodes. It is the basis of all transition technologies. However, it does not solve the IPv4 address depletion issue because each dual-stack node must have a globally unique IPv4 address.