Identifying an individual among millions is not easy unless we have a unique identifier, like contact numbers, identification numbers, or residential addresses that are distinct for each person. In the same way, to identify and communicate with a computer node in the network, we will need an IP address for each system. Here let’s compare and contrast IP addresses through IPv4 vs IPv6 comparisons.
An Internet Protocol (IP) is a set of rules to route the data packets to their concerned destination within the network. With these rules, the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) manages and distributes IP addresses to computers. These IP addresses are produced mainly to identify a specific computer in the network and route the messages to the right destination.
Let us consider the IP address, 49.207.180.7, for example. Computers only understand binary forms, so let’s learn to convert the decimal value to binary forms.
128 | 64 | 32 | 16 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 | |
49 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
207 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
180 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
To convert a dot-decimal to binary numbers. Use the structure of 8-bit octet representation that increases, like 2^0, 2^1, 2^2, 2^3, 2^4, 2^5, 2^6, and 2^8 as 1,2,4,8,16,32,64, and 128 respectively.
IPv6 is the latest and one of the two most popular versions of IP addresses in use. It provides a large address space as it is a 128-bit address scheme. It consists of 8 components and each component is separated by dots or periods and has a 16-bit address. On the whole, the IPv6 address scheme can provide (3.4*10^38), which may be more than 340 trillion addresses. Internet Protocol version 6 came into the picture to resolve the address exhaustion problem in 1998 to replace the IPv4 addresses and increase address availability. The IANA distributed all the IPv4 addresses and they ran out of the fourth version of IP addresses around 2011, which is when IPv6 came into existence.
Here is an example of an IPv6 address:
684D:1101:212:3343:4434:5525:6:87
IPv4 | IPv6 |
Internet Protocol version 4. | Internet Protocol version 6. |
32-bit addressing scheme. | 128-bit addressing scheme. |
Provides 2^32 combinations of addresses. | Provides 2^128 combinations of addresses. |
Represented in dot-decimal notation. | Represented in hexadecimal notation. |
Numerical addressing. | Alpha-numeric addressing. |
Provides nearly 4,294,967,296 IP addresses. | Can provide 340 trillion trillion trillion IP addresses. |
8 bits per group. | 16 bits per group. |
Has 5 different classes Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D, and Class E. | IPv6 does not have any classes. |
Supports manual and DHCP configurations. | Supports manual, DHCP, auto, and renumbering configurations. |
Security features are application dependent. | Provides a built-in security feature. |
Cannot identify the packet flow. | The packet flow can be identified with the flow label in the header. |
The minimum packet size is 576 bytes. | The minimum packet size is 1208 bytes. |
Not compatible with mobile devices. | Compatible with mobile devices. |
Provides multicast, broadcast, and unicast IP addresses. | Provides anycast, unicast, and multicast. |
It is easy to debate Ipv4 vs IPv6 by comparing the good and bad sides of each version, but it is not that easy to point to one of them as the best. People may claim that IPv6 is the best to use because it is the latest version and provides a large scale of IP addresses, but this is not true. Though IPv6 is going to be the future of networking, it is not compatible with many of the platforms and devices that are currently compatible with IPv4. So, they will have to work in parallel with IPv4 to achieve balance and make use of the good sides in both versions.
IPv4 and IPv6 are not compatible with each other. So, it is impossible to send requests from IPv4 to IPv6 or vice versa. To resolve this problem, we have a few techniques that can help the users to utilize the content of IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously.
IPv4 and IPv6 are the unique address locators of the devices on the network. This eases the communication by routing the message to the destination. But, here comes the problem. Some internet users do not prefer revealing their identity on the network. Still, they need an IP address to send and receive messages. This is where the proxy comes in.
Proxy servers make use of their own addresses to uniquely identify their customer’s locations. By this proxy, users can stay anonymous in the network and still represent themselves in the network with the proxy address.
IPv4 vs IPv6 is the basic comparison that speaks two different versions of the Internet Protocol addresses. Though both types intend to uniquely identify a device in the network, they majorly differ in size. Networking experts came up with an IPv6 version to overcome the address shortage of the IPv4.
IPv6 is the latest version that provides trillions of IP addresses. IPv6 stands better in the case of unlimited addresses, while IPv4 also has its own popularity as most people prefer IPv4. IPv6 is still not well established among the public.
The IP address is something the provider furnishes for each device. Still, you can make use of IP version converter tools, where you can convert your IPv4 address to a relevant IPv6 addre