Today internet and Internet base technologies has become part of our daily life. The Internet operates using set of rules called Internet protocol as it foundation. The Internet Protocol is used to interconnect packet-switched communication network to make-up internet. It transmit block of data (datagram) received to and from source and destination host. [1][2] The present version of Internet Protocol IPv4 that is use by different organisations worldwide and in the internet was developed 30 years by the United States Department of Defence (DoD), and reviewed severally to achieve the vigorous IPv4 that we are having today.[3][4]

IPv4, the present version of the Internet Protocol use worldwide, has been vigorous and easy to deploy, It has also successful operate with series of protocols and applications and yet scalable to ever increasing users and devices on the internet today.

However, the growing technologies and ever increasing number of devices connecting to internet couple with the confidential ecommerce transactional data transfer over the internet has reveal the limitations and the capabilities of IPv4 at the internet present scale.

IPv6 was developed specifically to address these limitations, enabling Internet growth and development in future.

1.1 Limitations of IPv4

Address Space: IPv4 provides approximately 4.3 billion IP addresses on the internet.[7] The world population as today is about 6.8 billion as record by United States Census Bureau [3]. It is generally expected that every home will have at least one computer that is connected to the Internet. Comparing the world population and address space provided the IPv4 clearly shows that the Internet Protocol has come of ages to be replace by it successor. The graph (Figure 1) below shows the speculation made on the address place of IPv4. The graph below shows the fast depletion of the address and speculated that the address will be exhausted in 2012.

Figure 1: The graph showing usage of IPv4 address space.

Security-As a result of huge traffic of confidential information, transactions, transfer over the Internet, security has become one of the most valuable features a system should provide. IPv4 was not built or designed originally without the feature of security. Virtual private network is usually use to

Overcoming the Limitations of IPv4

Several techniques has been use to address the limitations of the IPV4 like NAT, DHCP, CIDR and VPN to solve the problem of security.

Address Space – The IPv4 skimpy address space was long expected, The introduction of NAT (Network Address Translation) — having one public address and connecting huge number of devices through the public address to access internet, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) – dynamically registration and assigning IP address to machine or device when connected to a network and Classless Inter Domain Routing (CIDR) techniques were all use to lengthen the life span of IPv4.

Security – The Virtual Private Network (VPNs) is the technique use in overcoming the security limitation of IPv4. This is implemented at the gateway machines of the two network that is about to communicate, the data are encrypted and tunnel with extra headers to destination gateway, the gateway machine decrypts data and forward the packet to destination machine. Deployment of this security provides a considerable level of security but it is not cost effective. This will in purchasing of extra equipment, and re configuration of network thereby increasing the complexity of network system.

Overcome the Limitations of IPv4

Several techniques has been use to address the limitations of the IPV4 like NAT, DHCP, CIDR and VPN to solve the problem of security.

Address Space – The IPv4 skimpy address space was long expected, The introduction of NAT (Network Address Translation) — having one public address and connecting huge number of devices through the public address to access internet, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) – dynamically registration and assigning IP address to machine or device when connected to a network and Classless Inter Domain Routing (CIDR) techniques were all use to lengthen the life span of IPv4.

Security – The Virtual Private Network (VPNs) is the technique use in overcoming the security limitation of IPv4. This is implemented at the gateway machines of the two network that is about to communicate, the data are encrypted and tunnel with extra headers to destination gateway, the gateway machine decrypts data and forward the packet to destination machine. Deployment of this security provides a considerable level of security but it is not cost effective. This will in purchasing of extra equipment, and re configuration of network thereby increasing the complexity of network system.

Technological Advantages of IPv6

Support Plug and Play

The plug and play or auto configuration is one of the fascinating features of IPv6. This feature enables huge number of devices to boot and dynamically discover the network and obtain one or more valid network parameter needed to connect to internet or to the network. In IPv4, these addresses are assigned manually or by the use DHCP. The use of DHCP server in IPv6 is optional. This feature of auto configuration is very internet enable services such wireless solutions and mobile technologies.

Auto configuration, as the name implies is make renumbering of devices and machines on the network as the start-up and register the device automatically. It saves a lot of cost and time on IP network. Imagine configuration of DHCP server each time new equipment or replacement in a cooperate organisation. [5]

Support for Mobile IP and Mobile Devices

IPv6 uses inbuilt of auto configuration feature mobile device to listen and learn of the Care- of -Address, eliminating the need for Home Agent and Foreign Agent. In Mobile IP network, devices to move from network location to another without breaking or loss of their existing connection. This binding technique allows direct communication between the Mobile Node and the Corresponding Node. This eliminate the triangular routing use in traditional routing use IPv4and the triangular routing in IPv4. The structural design of Mobile IPv6 is very efficient support roaming and timely communication since the Mobile Node communicate directly with the Corresponding Node.

Support for Inbuilt IPSec

IPv6 offers Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) by default as compare to its predecessor IPv4 which is optional. It offers extension headers for authentication, encryption and making VPN deployments easier. The automatic attainment of valid network parameter IP address couple with inbuilt security protocol suite (IPSec) in IPv6, makes end-to-end security services simple with less effect on the network bandwidth unlike in IPv4 that involves encapsulation of extra header before tunnelling the datagram.

[5]Network Prtocols , by Mattew Naugle, Publisher Mcgraw- hill Signature page 496

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6

[2] http://netrex.com/documents/whitepapers/IPv6.pdf

[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

[4]http://www.ixiacom.com/library/white_papers/wp_display.php?skey=ipv6#A1

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