Why there is IPv6 news around!

What exactly is IPv6:
IPv6 or Internet Protocol Version 6 is the next generation protocol for the Internet. It is designed to provide several advantages over current Internet Protocol Version i.e. IPv4. Both IPv6 and IPv4 define network layer protocol i.e. data is sent from one computer to another computer over packet-switched networks for ex. through internet. IPv6 is also Data-oriented Protocol like IPv4.


Limitations of IPv4:
IPv4 is a 20 year old design and nobody anticipated the growth of the Internet. The current and projected size has exposed some design problems with IPv4.
There are several issues with IPv4:
1. Address Space Exhaustion: The recent exponential growth of the Internet is exhausting IPv4 address space. It supports only a fixed 32 bit field for addressing.


2. Address prefix allocation: Because of the way that IPv4 address prefixes have been and are currently allocated, Internet backbone routers are routinely required to maintain unreasonably large routing tables of over 85,000 specified routes. The current IPv4 Internet routing 
infrastructure is a combination of both flat and hierarchical routing.


3. Complexity of configuration: Most current IPv4 implementations must be either manually configured or use a stateful address configuration protocol such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). With more computers and devices using IP, there is a need for a simpler and more automatic configuration of addresses and other configuration settings that do not rely on the administration of a DHCP infrastructure.


4. Data security Issue: Private communication over a public medium like the Internet requires 
encryption services that protect the data being sent from being viewed or modified in transit. Although an add-on standard now exists for providing security for IPv4 packets (known as Internet Protocol Security or IPsec), this standard is optional and proprietary alternatives are commonly used.


5. Quality of Service (QoS): While standards for QoS exist for IPv4, no identification of packet flow for QoS handling by routers is present within the IPv4 header. Instead, real-time traffic support relies on the IPv4 Type of Service (ToS) field and the identification of the payload, typically using a UDP or TCP port. However, the IPv4 ToS field has limited functionality and payload identification using a TCP and UDP port is not possible when the IPv4 packet payload is encrypted.


IPv6 Address Space:
IPv6 addresses the main problem of IPv4, that is, the exhaustion of addresses to connect computers or host in a packet-switched network. IPv6 has a very large address space and consists of 128 bits as compared to 32 bits in IPv4. Therefore, it is now possible to support 2^128 (i.e. 3.4 × 10^{38 )unique IP addresses, a substantial increase in number of computers that can be addressed with the help of IPv6 addressing scheme.}


Features of IPv6:
1. New standardized header format
2. Larger address space
3. Multicast and anycast
4. Stateless address configuration
5. Built-in security
6. Better support for QoS
7. Extensibility