Benefits of IPv6

The world is almost out of IP addresses—or, at least, it’s almost out of the IPv4 addresses that It administrators and users are most familiar with. Fortunately, to address issues with the IPv4 protocol and to add features to improve the protocol for the future, the Internet engineering task Force (IETF) introduced IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), which exponentially expands the pool of available IP addresses while also providing other benefits. Here are a few ways in which IPv6 will come to the rescue and save the Internet.

Four Benefits of IPv6

1. More addresses: rather than the current 32bit addresses, IPv6 uses 128bit addresses, allowing for an exponential increase in the number of IP addresses available. Network routing experts have been aware of the limitations of IPv4 addressing since the 1980s—before most of the world knew the Internet existed, and before the web became ubiquitous.
IPv4 allows for about 4.3 billion IP addresses. but since every web connected device—servers, desktops, laptops, Smartphone, tablet PCs, and more—must have an IP address, and since the web has exploded in countries such as china and India, the world is rapidly consuming the available pool of IPv4 addresses. With 128 bits to use for creating unique addresses, IPv6 is capable of an insane number of addresses that far exceeds the demands of today’s Internet and Web connected devices. IPv6 provides enough IP addresses that every single person on the planet could have billions upon billions assigned to them personally.

2. Backward-compatibility: IPv6 is backward compatible with IPv4, so different networks or hardware manufacturers can upgrade at different times without disrupting the current flow of data on the Internet. Given the world’s dependence on the net for news, commerce, public safety, national security, and more, this is an important feature of IPv6. Eventually all IPv4 equipment will be replaced by attrition, and IPv6 will be the only address protocol in use. That transition could take decades, however, so backward compatibility will be crucial for the foreseeable future.

3. Better security: IPv6 was designed with encryption and authentication in mind. IPSec, an optional security component of IPv4, is mandatory in IPv6. with IPSec, each individual data packet is encrypted and authenticated, making many of the malicious attacks plaguing the Internet today impossible—or at least substantially more difficult.

4. Better performance: the creators of IPv6 have made changes to the way IP packets and headers are formed, and to the way IPv6 routers process the packets to improve performance—resulting in fewer missed or dropped packets, as well as more reliable and more efficient connections. With more people and de vices sharing the Internet, and with demands for VoIP (Voice over IP) and video streaming on the rise, performance will be absolutely critical. The IPv4 address crunch, in the making for more than two decades, is becoming very real. Expect to see a spike in IPv6 adoption in the near future.