IPv4 and IPv6 Versions
IT is a crazy thing, where every process should be done in the fastest way, in order to be comfortable for every user. Nowadays, we are using laptops, mobile phones, personal computers, and other devices and of course, what we do is we immediately turn on the Wi-Fi there. And every time we do that, IP is right there, working for us.
The Internet Protocol (IP) describes different agreements and requirements, which are essential for transmitting any data packets across networks. The standard of IP is governed by RFC 791 and is always used in coexistence with a higher-level protocol like TCP.
Nowadays, there are two versions of IP:
- IPv4 – was created many years ago and is still used for corporate networks or the internet itself. The problem is that the amount of devices that connect to the internet – increases every day, so 4,294,967,296 IP addresses are not enough.
- IPv6 – as IPv4 unique addresses were not enough for devices, the IETF ( Internet Engineering Task Force) developed IPv6 in 1998, which was 64-bits long, This upgrade increased the amount of available and unique addresses to 2128.
IP addresses are generally divided into four parts and are used to identify the network and the host to the network.
For example, the 32-bit IP number is 126.96.36.199, which is the representation of 10101000.11010100.11100010.11001100.
There are two parts in IPv4 addresses. First numbers specify the network, and the other numbers determine the hosts of the network itself.