10 Features That Make IPv6 Greater Than IPv4

As we all know that the IPv6 has been launched and many of hem are using it. I had also written a post on it the day it was launched. You can visit this link to know why to use IPv6 and its other feature. 

Ipv6 has its own website. You will find all the details including the use of it at ipv6.com

In this post we will be looking for the features of IPv6 which makes it greater than IPv4. Lets explore all its features one by one:

1) IPv6 provides a substantially larger IP address space than IPv4

Every computer or online device that needs to connect to the Internet requires a globally unique IP address. IPv4 uses 32 bits for an IP address that allows about 4 billion unique IP addresses. When IPv4 was introduced in the 1970s and accepted as the protocol for the Internet, they did not foresee this explosion in the popularity of the Internet or the extent to which online technologies would become all pervasive. It was therefore firmly believed that these 4 billion addresses would be sufficient to cover any future growth of the Internet.

To give an analogy, consider a mailman having to deliver a letter to the correct person in a community. As long as each one of the residents has a unique identifiable address, the mailman will have no trouble in identifying the address and delivering mail to the right individual.

2) IPv6 provides better end-to-end connectivity than IPv4

The most exciting applications to emerge in recent days are peer-to-peer applications such as multi-player online games, video-conferencing (streaming media), file sharing and VoIP. In peer-to-peer networking, a group of computers can communicate directly with each other and do not need a central server. Peer-to-peer applications demand end-to-end connections between unique IP addresses.

3)IPv6 has better ability for autoconfiguring devices than IPv4

Whenever a node plugs in and wants to be part of a network, IP address information and router information is required to properly configure the node and get it running. In the past, when there were fewer devices and computers in a network running IP, almost all of them were statically configured and IP addresses were manually assigned. However, with the rapid proliferation of personal computers (PC) and other IP-enabled devices, for efficient device management and reusing of resources, it became absolutely essential to consider some kind of autoconfiguration.

IPv4 uses the stateful address autoconfiguration protocol, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). In the stateful autoconfiguration model, a host obtains the interface addresses as well as other required information such as the configuration information and parameters from a server. The DHCP server maintains a manually administered list of hosts and keeps track of which addresses have been assigned to which hosts.

[Source: Cisco]

4) IPv6 contains simplified Header Structures leading to faster routing as compared to IPv4 

The present IP uses a Datagram service to transfer packets of data between point to point using routers. The IPv4 packet header structure contains 20 bytes of data, such that it contains within the header, all possible options thereby forcing intermediate routers to check whether these options exist and if they do, process them before forwarding them. In the IPv4 packet header, these options have a certain maximum permitted size.

5) IPv6 provides better security than IPv4 for applications and networks

The Internet has functioned for the last three decades with IPv4 as the underlying protocol. However, because of this end-to-end model, IPv4 was designed with almost no security in mind and assumes that the required security will be provided at the end nodes. For example, consider an application such as email that may require encryption services - under IPv4, it is the responsibility of the email client at the end nodes to provide those services. Today, the Internet faces threats such as Denial of Service Attacks, Malicious code distribution, Man-in -the-middle attacks, Fragmentation attacks and Reconnaissance attacks.

6) IPv6 gives better Quality of Service (QoS) than IPv4

The present IP uses a Datagram service to transfer packets of data between point to point using routers. The IPv4 packet header structure contains 20 bytes of data, such that it contains within the header, all possible options thereby forcing intermediate routers to check whether these options exist and if they do, process them before forwarding them. In the IPv4 packet header, these options have a certain maximum permitted size.

[Source: N3]

7) IPv6 provides better Multicast and Anycast abilities compared to IPv4

In a multicast technique a packet is copied from one stage down to another in a hierarchical tree-like structure, instead of sending it from the source directly. This means that there are fewer packets in the network thereby optimizing bandwidth utilization and also reducing the resources required at each network node. This multicast technique is particularly useful when streams of information have to be made available to a wide variety of connected devices and not just one single destination. For example multicast technique is used to relay audio data, video data, news feeds, financial data feeds and so on.

[Source: Cisco]

8) IPv6 offers better mobility features than IPv4

When we consider IP mobility features we are essentially considering features that
would be useful for:

Mobile devices, which can change their location but would like to retain existing connections.
Mobile networks that provide mobility to a group of devices
Ad-hoc networking in which some of the devices stay connected to the network or in the vicinity of the network only for the short duration of a communications session

When a mobile node is not at home, it conveys information about its present location, also called, care-of-address to the home agent. Now if a node wants to communicate with this mobile mode, it will first send the information packets to the home address. The home agent receives these packets and using a table, sends these packets to the care-of-address of the mobile node.

9) IPv6 offers ease of administration over IPv4

When an existing network is to be expanded or two networks to be merged, or when service providers are changed, a network needs to be renumbered, as a new address scheme will be assigned to it.

10) IPv6 follows the key design principles of IPv4, thereby permitting a smooth transition from IPv4.

IPv4 has been successfully deployed the world over for many years now and its popularity is a testament to the success of its design. IPv6 follows many of the same design features that made IPv4 so successful. This makes it possible to have a smooth transition from IPv4 to IPv6. There are many commercially attractive applications in the market today that require IPv6 and may tempt many to go in for a rapid transition to IPv6. However, IPv4 applications will be used for some time to come and the process of transition from IPv4 to IPv6 must be a gradual one.

All this information was collected from the site ipv6.com

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