IPv6

Use of IP Address

An IP address is set up for every connection to a device on the internet for identification and location definition.

After commercialization in the 1990s the use of internet worldwide begin to increase at a fast rate and under the circumstances it became evident that far more addresses than those available in IPv4 address space were needed to connect new devices in the future.

By 1998, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) had formalized the successor protocol. Internet Protocol version 6 is the recent variant of the Internet Protocol.

IPV6

 IPv6 uses a 128-bit address, which in terms of theory allows 2128, or approximately 3.4×1038 addresses. The original figure is somewhat smaller because multiple ranges are set aside for particular purpose or totally separated from employment.

The full figure of possible IPv6 address is more than 7.9×1028 times as many as that of IPv4, which uses 32-bit addresses and provides around 4.3 billion addresses.

To allow communication between IPv4 and IPv6 hosts various IPv6 transition mechanisms have been prepared.

IPv6 serves other benefits in technical terms in addition to a larger addressing space. In particular, it allows hierarchical address allocation methods that help in the facilitation of aggregation of routes across the Internet, and therefore restrict the expansion of routing tables.

Mobility of device, protection, and aspects regarding configuration have been given thought in the blueprint of the protocol.

IPv6 addresses are generally written as four hexadecimal digits in eight groups with the groups being separated by colons, but methods to abbreviate this full notation exist.

The first official identification in Internet standard document for IPV6 was published in December 1998.

In addition to providing more addresses, IPv6 also introduces new features which are not present in IPv4. It simplifies aspects of address assignment, renumbering of network, and router announcements when changing network connectivity providers.

It makes processing of packets very simple in routers by placing the responsibility for packet fragmentation into the end stages.

IPv6 is an Internet Layer protocol which is made for packet-switched internetworking and it also provides end-to-end datagram transmission across more than one IP networks a bit similar to IPV4.

The IPv6 subnet size is made standard by fixing the size of the host identifier portion of an address to make it 64 bits so that an automatic mechanism options is available for making the identifier from link layer addressing information.

Network security was a requirement in terms of design of the IPv6 architecture, and it includes the original specification of IPsec.

IPv6 essentially creates a parallel and independent network.

Exchange of traffic between the two networks needs employment a transition mechanism like NAT64, In comparison to IPv4, the advantage of IPv6 which strikes the most is its larger address space.

IPv4 addresses provides approximately 4.3×109 (4.3 billion) addresses because it is 32 bits long while in case of IPv6 addresses, being 128 bits long, it offers an address space of 3.4×1038 addresses. Such a great distance is held sufficient for the future.