IPV-6

Internet Protocol version 6, the name for the next-generation IP addressing system that will eventually replace the IPv4 standard. Well, the internet works by moving small packets of data around the network as defined by an international communications protocol – the internet protocol. Each device connected to the internet has an IP address. The packets of data contain the IP addresses of the devices they are being sent from and to, which is how they end up in the right place. It is the new-generation IPv6 IP addresses work means there is a huge increase in the number of combinations of addresses possible compared with IPv4. Developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force and first defined in the RFC 2460 internet standard document

 

 

In 1998, IPv6 uses addresses with 128 characters compared with IPv4’s 32-bit addressing system. This extra character length allows IPv6 to produce 340 undecillion – that’s 34,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – IP addresses. Or, to put it another way, several billion addresses for each person on earth. The huge numbers of IPv6 addresses will be virtually inexhaustible in the near future, so the huge growth in internet-connected devices can be sustained and catered for.  Not exactly, although a critical stage was recently reached when the final batch of IPv4 addresses were allocated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers