Introduction to IPV6 Features
The following article provides an outline for IPV6 Features. The IPV6 stands for Internet Protocol Version 6, which is the most recent version of internet protocol developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF); it is the next generation internet protocol standard intended to replace IPV4 and many internet services using the protocol eventually. IPV6 is the 128 bits address, and it has eight sections called hextets. It is a network protocol layer that is used to communicate and transfer the data over the network. The devices on a network can use it as a source and destination addresses to pass packets over a network for the long term health of the internet IPV6 is important.
Various IPV6 Features
Given below are the various IPV6 Features:
1. Larger Address Space
The IPV6 uses four times more bits for addressing a device on the internet as compared to IPV4, and the space provided by it is 3.4 x 10 ^ 38 devices; the address space provided by IPV6 may fulfill the requirement to allocate addresses all over the world means it can be allocated to everywhere on the earth in a square meter, this the main feature of the IPV6.
2. Simplified Header
The header of the IPV6 is twice bigger than the header provided by IPV4 on the other hand, the address provided by it is 4× more than IPV4, IPV6 header is not complex but easy to process while in IPV4, the header is complex, so by simplifying in IPV6 we need to move all the information from the header of it to the end of its header.
3. End-to-end Connectivity
The end-to-end connectivity feature in internet protocol, as of now every system has an IP address which is to be unique it can cross the internet without translating other components, it is fully implemented on the internet each host can access the other host directly, but there may have some restrictions like firewall, and policies of the organization may restrict.
The auto-configuration is the process to verify uniqueness on a link; it also determines the information that should be auto-configured, it supports stateful configuration mode to keep track of each assignment as well as it also supports the stateless auto-configuration in which there is no need to configure manually because it automatically generates the IPV6 addresses.
5. Faster Routing or Forwarding
The information which is present at the first part of the header is enough to make routing decisions as we know this is the simplified header feature as we have seen above, and due to the information present at header the IPV6 can make routing decisions faster, in this, we can say that IPV6 is faster in routing.
This is an optional feature provided by IPV6 to give security of IPSec type, which is more secure than IPV4 and IPSec is used at the network or packet processing layer to secure the network.
The aggregation is another feature of IPV6, which allows using a single prefix for the entire network, which is easy and flexible to promote efficient and scalable routing.
8. No Broadcast
The IPV6 uses multicast address instead of broadcast address because it does not support the broadcast address, by using multicast address it communicates with the multiple hosts, it also has anycast mode which is a new type of address, a network device sends a packet to a multicast address then the device broadcast the packet to all interfaces which are identified by the address.
9. Anycast Support
Anycast is the featuring provided by IPV6 that is the mode of packet routing; on the internet, by using the anycast mode, the same anycast IP address can assign multiple interfaces, we can say that this is the address we can assign to multiple interfaces or set of interfaces, in this way IPV6 support the anycast.
This feature of IPV6 allows the host, like a mobile phone, to keep the device connected in different geographic areas by using the same IP address, the mobility in IPV6 can assign an IP address to the mobile node within its home network, and the mobile node of the home address is useful to reach their destination.
11. Enhanced Priority Support
This is another feature of the IPV6 to check the priority support that IPV4 provided the quality of services where it used 6 bits Differential Service Code Point that is DSCP, and 2 bits Explicit Congestion Notification that is ECN but that can be used only when there is an end-to-end devices support so the underlying network like source and destination may support to it.
12. Smooth Transition
The smooth transition is the transition technique in IPV6 which is upgraded from IPV4 based on the up-to-date IPV6 technique, by the feature of the large IP address in IPV6 allow to assign the same IP address globally so devices can send and receive data within the network, the router in it can forward the decisions quickly rather the header is less loaded, and another enhancement is that all routers in one path need to do recalculation for IPV6 packet instead of error detection which is handled by the data link layer.
Extensibility is the major advantage of the IPV6; it is extensible so that it can add more information in the options section, the IPV6 has a large size packet where the IPV4 has less than IPV6 so that IPV4 can support 40-byte options only, in this way of adding extension header after the IPV6 header IPV6 can easily be extended, and the size of its extension is mannered by the size of its packets.
Conclusion – IPV6 Features
In this article, we have seen some important features of the Internet Protocol Version 6; we conclude that the IPV6 is the latest version of Internet Protocol that overcame the IPV4 by taking new features in it. The main difference is that the addressing, which allows connecting more devices.
This is a guide to IPV6 Features. Here we discuss the introduction and various IPV6 features for the better understanding. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –