The Evolving Internet Protocol

June 18, 2001

The Internet Protocol (IP) will be moving to the new IP version 6 (IPv6) from the current IP version 4 (IPv4). IPv6 addresses IPv4 limitations, such as a quickly evaporating address space and a lack of quality-of-service (QoS) support. But IPv4 is...

William G. Wong

IPv4 and IPv6 can coexist on the same network because the Version field in a packet header identifies the type of packet. A device can support both protocols, but it must have both IPv6 and IPv4 protocol stacks.

IPv4 and IPv6 can be mixed on the same network by using a router that supports network address translation (NAT). IPv6 will first find use on the Internet backbone, with NAT router support letting IPv4 nodes operate unchanged. IPv6 will be exposed as subnets. Internet service providers support IPv6.

See associated figure

IPv4 Advantages

Currently used on the Internet

Supported by current stacks

Works with current DNS and DHCP servers

Limitations

Running out of addresses (32-bit)

No auto configuration

No security support

No quality of service (QoS)

IPv6 Advantages

Large address space (128-bit)

Auto configuration support

Advanced routing and broadcasting

Mobile device support

Security support

QoS support

Supported by the latest DNS and DHCP servers

Disadvantages

Requires new stacks

Incompatible with IPv4

Limited stack availability

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.