by
Mark Ollig
The
Internet’s device addressing system, like the 1977 song by Jackson Browne, is
“Running on Empty.”
In
1981, a very young Internet began using a device addressing system called
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4).
By
1983, the Internet was being used by the Department of Defense for connecting
researchers and universities.
The
IPv4 addressing system provides a unique way of identifying individual
computers and other devices, allowing them to communicate with each other over
the Internet.
A
good analogy to compare this to would be with a ten-digit telephone number.
IPv4
is a four decimal, 32-bit code.
For
example, a dotted, decimal format Internet Protocol (IP) address of
216.27.61.137 when written in binary code is this:
11011000.00011011.00111101.10001001.
Four
decimal points separate each of the eight binary bits, which make up the 32
bits of the IPv4 code.
There
can be understandable confusion, because eight bits are known as a byte;
however, the size of the byte is referenced as an octet when used in protocol
definitions.
Each
of these eight binary positions can have two different states (1 or 0); the
total number of combinations per octet is 256.
Since
each octet can contain any value between 0 and 255, the four octets will
provide a maximum combination of 4,294,967,296 unique IP addresses.
I
know – it’s a math thing. Thank goodness my mother quizzed me on multiplication
tables when I was in third grade. My teacher, Mrs. Seymour, was impressed; and
yes, mom, I still remember them.
I
watched a 2012 video in which Vinton Cerf, one of the co-creators of IPv4,
talked about the problem we face with running out of Internet addresses, and
why we need to use IPv6.
Back
in 1976, when IPv4 was undergoing development by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn,
they considered the Internet as just an experiment, and assumed having an IP
addressing pool of nearly 4.3 billion unique numbers, or Internet termination
points, would be enough.
By
1983, both still believed 4.3 billion Internet addresses would suffice
“forever,” according to Cerf.
“The
thing is, the experiment never ended,” he added.
They
soon realized in the early 1990s, that 4.3 billion unique Internet addresses
would not be enough, as more and more computers and other devices, became
connected to this ever-growing Internet experiment.
Each
of these new devices required their own unique Internet protocol identifier
address.
So,
in 1996, they developed a new formatting protocol for the Internet called IPv6.
I
know what you may be thinking; “What happened to IPv5?”
Well,
this IP version was not presented for public use.
IPv5
was developed in the late 1970s, and was an experimental design for providing a
real-time streaming protocol called Internet ST (Internet Stream Protocol).
It
was intended for the transmission of voice and video signals, and was to be
used by the military for the “distributed simulation” of real-time war-games.
IPv6
has enough capacity to provide unique addresses for a nearly unlimited number
of devices.
There
are 128 bits of address space with IPv6, compared with 32 bits used on IPv4.
How
many unique IP addresses will IPv6 provide?
Hold
on folks, because it is a colossal-sized number 340 trillion, trillion,
trillion, or 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
“If
I had known in 1973, what was going to happen in 2013, I would have insisted on
a much larger address space so we wouldn’t have to go through this transition,”
Cerf said last June, while talking about IPv6.
It
is predicted this year there will be over 7 billion mobile cell phones in use
worldwide. If all of these cell phones required Internet access, it would
exhaust the current IPv4 limit.
Future
cell phones, mobile computing and smart devices, electronic monitors and
sensors, our automobiles, and even robotic devices, will be connected to the
Internet.
These,
and other yet-to-be-invented gadgets, add urgency to the importance of our
achieving a world-wide deployment of IPv6.
Today,
manufacturers of data routers, servers, switches, mobile smart devices, and
other equipment, along with Internet Service Providers (ISPs), public and
private businesses, and government agencies throughout the world, have already
made, or are currently working on, provisioning IPv6.
IPv4
will continue to operate parallel with IPv6 throughout the transition. This
will allow the Internet network operators the time needed to eventually phase
out the old IPv4 standard.
We
should note the mobile phones and smart devices we currently have may already
support IPv6; however, the Internet sites we go to, and the ISPs, need to
enable IPv6 functionality, before we can take full advantage of it.
The
transition to IPv6 will allow us to connect and communicate with additional
billions, and theoretically trillions, of new devices over the Internet, thus
bringing to realization the “Internet of Everything.”
Are
you IPv6 ready? To find out, click on Google’s IPv6 test site link,
http://ipv6test.google.com.
