IPv6 Address

IPv6 address or IP version 6 or IP Next Generation (IPng), is the IP address used on the IPv6 protocol. IPv6, or Internet Protocol version 6, is the latest IP protocol that is reserved for future purposes. It has been around for over twenty years, the Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4). IPv4 provides all the 32-bit IP address or IP address a number of 232 pieces. IP address allocation as much as it was originally considered sufficient. Until 1991, there is a fear that one day the number of hosts connected to the Internet will exceed the capacity of IPv4.

That concern prompted experts to formulate a version of the new Internet protocol. The proposal submitted in 1992 and for several years received input from various parties. After experiencing a long journey, eventually forming a new yanh protocol called Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) or Next Generation Internet Protocol.

Then where IP version 5? Specifications designed IPv5 began in late 1980. Internet Stream Protocol (ST) is inserted in the header IPv5. However, IPv5 never made for public purposes, IPv5 intended as an experimental protocol.

Unlike IPv4, IPv6 IP address allocation is 128 bits or a number of 2128 pieces of IP address, this value is equivalent to 340.282.366.920.938.463.374.607.431.768.211.456 (about 3.4 × 1038) fruit IP address. Approximately every population in the world could earn about 5 × 1028 addresses. Thus, Internet users do not have to worry about running out of IP addresses. In addition, IPv6 also has other advantages compared to IPv4.

For now and a few tens of years, IPv4 is still being used. There are already experiments were performed to combine IPv4 to IPv6 networks. So hosts using IPv4 can communicate with hosts using IPv6, with a particular technique called tunneling. Implementation of experimental IPv6 backbone networks that exist, let alone 6REN and 6BONE (www.6bone.net). While information about IPv6 can be obtained from the website www.ipv6.org.

The IPv6 header is slightly different than IPv4. If you notice, the IPv6 header is much simpler. The most striking difference appears in the column address allocation (source and destination address) along 128 bits. As already mentioned, one of the advantages of IPv6 is the allocation of IP addresses is very large.

IPv4
Ver.	Header	TOS	Total Length
Identification			Flag	Fragment Offset
TTL		Protocol	Checksum
32 bit source address
32 bit destination address
IPv6
Ver.	Traffic Class	Flow Label
Playload Length		Next Header		Hop Limit
128 bit source address
128 bit destination address

The IPv6 header has fewer fields than with IPv4. Length header is always fixed and fragmentation is confined to the IPv6 packet will make the router to be faster in processing IPv6.