Ipv6 Case
Internet Protocol version 6
IP version 6 (IPv6) was created to replace IP version 4 (IPv4). The Internet Protocol (versions 4 and 6) operates at the Network Layer of the OSI Model and is the primary logical addressing protocol for TCP/IP. The Internet Protocol is primarily responsible for making sure that data can get from one network to another. It accomplishes this by assigning each host on the network a unique identifier called an IP address. An IPv4 address is 32 bits long while an IPv6 address is 128 bits long. Both versions of the Internet Protocol specify the creation of a packet used for data transmission across networks. These packets contain the data along with source and destination IP addresses, and are unchanged as they traverse the network from one host to another.
The need for a new addressing scheme that could support more Internet hosts became apparent within a decade of the creation of Internet Protocol version 4. When IPv4 was first created in the late 1970s, it was thought that the 32 bit long IP address space, which supported about 4 billion IP addresses, would be sufficient. However, due to wasteful allocation of address space and the explosive growth of the Internet, a new addressing scheme had to be created. Officially, on February 3, 2011, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) allocated the last remaining IPv4 Internet addresses. Meaning, “the future expansion of the Internet is now dependant on the successful global deployment of the next generation of Internet Protocol, called IPv6” (ICANN 1). IPv6 was developed in the mid 1990s, well before the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses. Also, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) came up with some short-term solutions to delay the inevitable exhaustion of IPv4 addresses. The two main short-term solutions were Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) and Network Address Translation (NAT). Originally, IPv4 address space was parceled out in set sizes as either a class A, B, or C network. These set network sizes could support 16,777,214 hosts, 65,534 hosts, or 254 hosts per network, respectively. This resulted in a lot of wasted addresses. An organization that needed 500 addresses would be assigned a class B network ID, wasting tens of thousands of IP addresses. CIDR addressed this by allowing “classful” networks to be divided into more appropriately sized networks based on the needs of an organization. Network Addresses Translation conserves Internet addresses by allowing many hosts inside a private network to all share a single public IP address. A NAT capable device sits at the edge of the private network and converts the private address in outgoing packets to the shared public address for transmission across the Internet. These solutions have worked very well for extending the life of IPv4 in the short-term. IPv6, however, provides a long-term solution to the problem.