A Brief Introduction to the Benefits of IPv6 and How it Works

What are the benefits of IPv6? An Internet Protocol address, or IP address, is a set of numbers assigned to a computer or other device to enable Internet communication. And it's quite significant. After all, you wouldn't be able to send and receive data without an IP address. In other words, the internet couldn't exist without IP addresses.

In this article, we will explain the tech behind the IP, IPv4, IPv6, and the benefits of IPv6.

What is IPv4?

Internet Protocol version 4 is known as IPv4. We can link our devices to the web thanks to the underlying technologies. Every time a device connects to the Internet, a special IP address, like 99.48.227.227, is given to it. A data packet comprising the IP addresses of both devices must be sent over the network to transport data from one computer to another via the web.

Of course, the existence of IPv4 for almost 40 years does provide a challenge. The maximum number of IPv4 addresses is 4.3 billion, which is astounding. And this was deemed to be more than enough in the early 1980s. But as the internet spread around the globe, it was only a matter of time before we ran out of IPv4 addresses. And by the middle of the 1990s, engineers had to find ways to generate more IP addresses.

Nowadays, everyone connects to the internet via a variety of devices, including smartphones, laptops, tablets, and conventional desktop PCs. Additionally, because of the Internet of Things, which means that more devices than ever before require IP addresses, developers have had to come up with a more long-term solution.

What is IPv6?

The next-generation Internet Protocol (IPv6) address standard, which is still widely used by many Internet services today, is designed to complement and ultimately replace IPv4. To communicate with other connected devices, every computer, smartphone, home automation component, Internet of Things sensor, and other Internet-connected device requires a numerical IP address. Due to its broad use and the rise in linked devices, the original IP address scheme, or IPv4, is running out of addresses.

The previous version, IPv4, supports 4.3 billion devices with a 32-bit addressing scheme, which was deemed enough at the time it was put into place. However, it became obvious that the world required more addresses as the Internet, personal computers, smartphones, and the Internet of Things all grew in popularity.

Thankfully, this was acknowledged by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) about 25 years ago. In 1998, it developed IPv6, which supports roughly 340 trillion (or 2 to the 128th power) addresses using 128-bit addressing. The IPv6 address format includes eight groups of four hexadecimal digits, separated by colons, as opposed to the IPv4 address format of four sets of one- to three-digit integers.

Benefits of IPv6 Technology:

The performance, security, and efficiency of the IPv6 protocol can all be improved. Increasing their hierarchical structure enables internet service providers to shrink the size of their routing tables. When properly deployed, IPv6 is more secure than IPv4 since it was designed with security in mind. IP Security (IPSec) is a group of IETF security protocols that support IPv6's built-in mechanisms for authentication, security, and data integrity.

When IPv6 was first introduced, it demanded that internet traffic be encrypted using the well-known encryption standard IPSec. This makes IPv6 secure because encryption encrypts your internet traffic's information so that whoever intercepts it cannot decode it. But because IPSec can also be used with IPv4, IPv4 has the potential to be as secure as IPv6—at least in theory. Of course, this hasn't been widely adopted because it can be expensive to implement.

Internet service providers occasionally employ transitional technology like IPv6 tunnels. Even if one private network uses an IPv4 address and the other an IPv6 address, they can still interact thanks to this technique.

IPv6 tunneling, however, can expose customers to cyber security dangers including DoS assaults. Hackers also use packet injection and reflection attacks to target IPv6 tunnel users.

Of fact, these transition techniques will probably remain in use for a while given that the switch to IPv6 is likely to take many more years to complete. Therefore, it's important to be aware that the transition technology may make you susceptible to hacking. If looking for a reliable and feature-pack wireless solution with IPv6 capabilities, then opt for the RG-RSR20-X Router from Ruijie Networks which is best suited for scalable deployment of new applications for the financial sector, government, and enterprises while minimizing the investment cost. 

Conclusion:

This article stressed the benefits of IPv6 and why it was brought into existence. we also compared the IPV4 and this new version. It's crucial to comprehend and contrast the fundamental differences between the IPv4 and IPv6 networking protocols before choosing one of them. Therefore, one of these two options should be picked to achieve the desired results.