Introduction to IPv6
Microsoft is delivering support for the emerging update to the Internet Layer Protocol through Internet Protocol version 6 (or simply IPv6 (RFC 2460)) for packet-switched inter-networks. IPv4 is currently the dominant Internet Protocol version, and was the first to receive widespread use.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has designated IPv6 as the successor to version 4 for general use on the Internet. It significantly increases the size of the address space used to identify communication endpoints in the Internet, thereby allowing it to continue its tremendous growth rate. IPv6 is also known as IPng (IP Next Generation).
Limitations of IPv4
Most of today's internet uses IPv4, which is now nearly twenty years old. IPv4 was remarkably but in spite of that it is beginning to have problems. Most importantly, there is a growing shortage of IPv4 addresses, which are needed by all new machines added to the Internet.
The limited address range forces organizations to use Network Address Translation (NAT) firewalls to map multiple private addresses to a single public IP address. NATs does not support standards-based network-layer security and also creates complicated barriers to VoIP, and other services.
The routing tables of Internet backbone routers are becoming larger. A separate routing table entry is needed for each network resulting in a large number of routing table entries.
Security was also an issue for IPv4. Although there are lots of ways of encrypting IPv4 traffic, such as using the IPSec protocol, but unfortunately all of the IPv4 encryption methods are proprietary and no real standard encryption methods exist.
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