IPv6
Description:
The IP protocol used for internet communication is comparable with the zip-code in the postal service industry. An IP-address is an unique identifier, which ensures that you will get the (network) packages you've asked for: e.g. when client A with address_A asks web-server X for webpage Y, then web-server X needs to know client A's address.
With the IPv4 protocol we are out of usable adresses, there are just too many people that want to have a unique address. A new IP-protocol version IPv6 can provide these adresses, and more!
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a network layer protocol for packet-switched internetworks. It is designated as the successor of IPv4, the current version of the Internet Protocol, for general use on the Internet.
The main improvement brought by IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is the increase in the number of addresses available for networked devices, allowing, for example, each mobile phone and mobile electronic device to have its own address. IPv4 supports 232 (about 4.3 billion) addresses, which is inadequate for giving even one address to every living person, let alone supporting embedded and portable devices.
IPv6, however, supports 2128 addresses; this is approximately 5×1028 addresses for each of the roughly 6.5 billion people alive today. If we do the calculations the IPv6 supports approximately 3.341*10^13 which is 33,410,000,000,000 and thus provides enough addresses for every grain of sand on the planet to have its own IP address many times over.
Enablers:
- Increasing internet usage: Severe shortage of IP addresses today
- Increasing mobile usage, pervasive computing: Network resources available worldwide 24/7
- Routing table explosion: IPv6 solves this
- Management Nightmare
- Most IPv4 addresses allocated to United States
- IPv6 has lots of extra features, and is more efficient:
- IPv4 has no support (build in) for new applications (QOS, Mobility etc.)
- IPv4 not scalable, efficient, extensible enough
- IPv4 only has 32-bit addressing
- IPv4 has no security (build in): IPv6 does
- IPv4 has lots of redundancy in protocol
Inhibitors:
- High transistion cost.
- Deployement Issues: Transistioning or direct replacement
- IPv6 is not backwards compatible:
- IPv4 applications cannot work with IPv6. Major patching effort.
- Lack of IPv6 applications in general.
- Transistion phase is needed: Either applications get rewritten, or we translate/tunnel different IP protocols through each other. [IPv4 over IPv6 or IPv4 over IPv6].
Paradigms:
- IPv4 era: Limited amount of online users thus a limited amount of IP-addresses, mostly allocated to US.
- IPv6 era: Enormous boom in online users, and new (mobile) networks demand for more and more IP-addresses. Backwards compatability should be solved by workarounds like tunneling or translation.
Experts:
Timing:
When the demand for new IP-addresses is high enough to force the industry to invest in IPv6 infrastructure. But before that happens IPv6 will be stimulated by many IPv6 networks that communicate over the web via IPv4 (tunneling/translation).