What is IPv6?


IPv6 is the latest version of the main communication method that identifies and places computers and other devices online. Provides efficient package management, which improves performance and security. Despite this, the entire Internet is taking its toll on switching from IPv4.

IPv4 uses a 32-bit speech mode to support 4.3 billion devices, which was considered sufficient at the time. However, the rise of the Internet, personal computers, smartphones, and now the Internet of Things devices shows that the globe needs more addresses.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) fortunately recognized this 20 years ago. It designed IPv6 in 1998, which employs 128-bit addressing to support roughly 340 trillion addresses. Eight groups of four hexadecimal digits make up an IPv6 address. If a group has four zeros, the notation can be reduced by replacing the zeros with a colon.

Structure of IPv6

The first logical element of an IPv6 address is a 64-bit network prefix assigned to a user site or subscriber network; the second is a 64-bit host identification. It can be allocated sequentially or created automatically from a MAC (Media Access Control) address on an interface.

IPv6 addresses, unlike their shorter IPv4 predecessors, are composed of eight groups of four hexadecimal digits. Each of the eight categories is separated by a colon (:). "2004:0cb8:82a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334" is an example of an IPv6 address.

In an IPv6 address, if one or more four-digit groups contain all zeros, the numbers can be represented by two colons side by side (::). Only one double-colon abbreviation per IPv6 address is allowed. "2001:db3::1228:54ab" is an example of such an address.

As this notation employs hexadecimal, which includes the letters A-F, it creates vanity IPv6 addresses.

IPv6 Address Types

Let's look at the different types of IPv6 addresses now that we know what they are.

  • Unicast addresses are addresses that are only used once.

  • It usually refers to a single sender or recipient and identifies a unique node on a network.

  • Addresses that are multicast

  • It represents a collection of IP devices and can only be used as a datagram's destination.

  • Addresses that can be used in anycast

  • It's associated with a group of interfaces that normally belong to various nodes.

What are the advantages of using IPv6?

IPv6 is reliable and quite efficient in routing. It also offers the following advantages −

  • Faster Speeds − In contrast to IPv4, IPv6 offers multicast rather than broadcast. This feature allows bandwidth-intensive packet flows (such as multimedia streams) to be transmitted simultaneously to several destinations.

  • High Security − IPv6 has IPSecurity, which offers secrecy and data integrity.

Disadvantages of IPv6

  • Conversion − Due to the widespread use of IPv4, converting to IPv6 will take a long time.

  • IPv4 and IPv6 machines cannot connect directly with one another. To do so, they'll require an intermediary technology.

Updated on: 19-Aug-2021

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