LMOS has been certified as USGv6 compliant for both StateLess Address AutoConfiguration (SLAAC) interoperability and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Version 6 (DHCPv6) client interoperability. SLAAC is the native IPv6 facility for automatic IP address configuration for network devices. In the earlier IPv4 addressing scheme, this facility was provided by DHCPv4. DHCPv6 is just the IPv6 version of the earlier DHCPv4 capability.

So, why provide DHCPv6 client interoperability on the LoadMaster? Why not just use SLAAC?

In practice, IPv4 and IPv6 addressing are currently widely used together within the same infrastructures, and there is a significant part of the IPv6 market that continues to leverage both DHCPv4 and DHCPv6, rather than using SLAAC. This is done so that both IPv4 and IPv6 IP address auto-configuration can be managed from within the current administrative infrastructure. This preserves the value of that infrastructure, which may have been costly to develop, until such time as IPv4 is no longer needed, and provides a single management interface for both addressing architectures.