Comparative Study of IPv4 and IPv6 Network Protocols

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COMPUTER NETWORK
NETWORK ARCHITECTURE AND
PROTOCOLS
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
On the basis of Structure of Protocol.........................................................................................5
Addressing Scheme....................................................................................................................7
Merits and Demerits of IPV4 and IPv6......................................................................................8
Performance of the Protocols.....................................................................................................9
Deployment Figures of the past five years...............................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12
1

Introduction
This report explains the Internet Protocols and its different versions available over the
network that is IPv4 and IPv6. The term Internet Protocols is defined as a set of rules which
are defined in order to communicate between the computers. The protocols play various
crucial functions such as identification of errors, compression of data, addressing of data,
determining to send off data and declaring sent and received data.
One of the best open system protocol suites is Internet protocol, which is convenient for both
WAN and LAN communications and also provides the facility to communicate in almost
every interlinked network. The protocols are able to do this with the help of TCP/IP protocols
also known as IP suite which establishes a link between the source and the destinations.
There are various types of Internet protocols available:
 TCP/IP
 HTTP
 FTP
 TelNet
 AppleTalk
 SSH
 IMA P
 SMTP
Figure 1: IP
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IPv4 vs IPv6
There are two versions of IP available currently
 IPv4
 IPv6
These protocols are widely used protocols whose main aim is to establish a connection
among the source and the destination. IPv4 is widely used and installed protocol whose
primary aim is to connect devices from one host to another to exchange messages over the
Internet. On the other hand, IPv6 is termed as IPng (internet protocol next generation) is
basically designed to complete the requirement for more internet addresses.
In the above section, there is a comparison has been made between the two protocols IPv4
and IPv6 on the basis of the following points.
 The protocol structures
 The addressing schemes
 Merits and Demerits
 Performance
 Deployment figure in the last 5 years
3

On the basis of Structure of Protocol
Figure 2: Protocol Structure
IPv4 and IPv6 are nothing but addresses that are used to locate machines that are linked to a
network. Principle of both the protocols are the same but there is a difference in how they
work [1].
Difference IPv4 IPv6
1. IP address Size Its IP address is of size 32-
bit
An IP address is of 128-bit
size
2. Header Field number 12 8
3. Size of header fields 20 40
4. Checksum Contains checksum field Does not contains checksum
field
5. Addresses type Multicast, broadcast and
unicast
Multicast, unicast and
anycast
6. Classes numbers IPv4 contains only five
different classes that are
from A to E
IPv6 permits an unlimited
number of classes.
7. VLSM IPv4 bears VLSM stands for
the virtual length subnet
mask
IPv6 does not bear VLSM
(virtual length subnet mask)
8. RIP RIP short for Routing RIP stands for Routing
4

Information Protocol which
supports IPv4
Information Protocol which
does not support IPv6.
9. Configuration of
Network
Manually or DHCP
configuration available
Support auto-configuration
5

Addressing Scheme
An IP address is represented as binary numbers which are stored as text that can be read by
humans. The address schemes for both IPv4 and IPv6 are different that are described below
Figure 3: IPv4 vs IPv6 Addressing Scheme
IPv4 Addressing Schemes
An IPv4 utilizes a 32- bit numeric address scheme which is equal to 4 bytes, the usage of
IPv4 protocol is used massively across the world. It can store addresses of size equals to 2^32
addresses nearly equal to 4 billion addresses as every device such as tabs, computers, mobiles
which are linked to the internet has associated with address which implies with the increase
in the usages of internet and also increase in the number of users now the unused IPv4
addresses came into use.
Address representation of IPv4
x. x. x.x
x is an octet which is separated by periods which contains values from 0-255
Example of IPv4 addressing schemes: 192.168.12.0
IPv6 Addressing Schemes
An IPv4 contains 128-bit numeric address scheme which is equal to 16 bytes which can
produce address space of 3.4x 1038 addresses and is denoted in a hexadecimal format which
stores address size of approximately 3 billion. It bears auto-configuration along with
renumbering address configuration. As the demand for IP addresses increasing this is the
reason why IPv6 came into existence [2].
Address representation of IPv6
y:y:y:y:y:y:y:y
y represents the segments which are separated by semicolon where y can be any hexadecimal
value which contains values from 0-FFFF. the address of IPv6 should contain 8 segments and
7 colons.
Example of IPv6 addressing schemes: 2001:db8:0:12
6

Merits and Demerits of IPV4 and IPv6
As we know every entity existing in this world has its two sides positive and negative
likewise these protocols have its advantages and disadvantages as the users of the internet are
growing rapidly there is a need to understand both positive and negative impacts of these
protocols
Merits of IPv6 over IPv4
 Increasing capacity
IPv6 has large address space compared to IPv4 which definitely helps the inefficient
allocation of resources which can contain more addresses of internet.
 Efficiency of Routing
Due to increase routing efficiency of IPv6 in comparison to IPv4, it allows the aggregation
which is used to assign prefixes to the network of IP easily.
 Efficiency in data Flow
IPv6 allows simultaneous transferring of big data packages which result in conserving
bandwidth which IPv4 unable to accomplish.
 Security
IPv6 is highly secure compare to IPv4 as its authentication methods are far better and
established in firewalls of the network.
Demerits of IPv6 over IPv4
 Conversion between the protocols
Still, the use of IPv4 is massive across the world so it can convert fast as compare to IPv6
which is converting slowly.
 Communication among the protocols
There is no need for both the protocols to communicate directly, only under rare
circumstances these situations occur where they would require to.
 Transition of protocols
Switching from IPv6 to IPv4 is quite cumbersome and hectic as this process would take a
very long time to complete.
 Readability of protocols
It is very difficult to understand the subnetting of IPv6 compare to IPv4 [3].
7

Performance of the Protocols
The performance comparisons of the IPv4 and IPv6 protocols can be done by considering the
following points that are in terms of speed and stability.
Although the speed of the IPv4 is quite fast as compared to the IPv6 it cannot be stable as
speed is directly proportional to the location as the speed of IPv4 is minutely higher than of
IPv6 the location can affect the speed but the difference is very small.
Another aspect of performance can be measured by stability also it is observed that IPv6 is
less stable compared to IPv4 as it produces outliers.
8

Deployment Figures of the past five years
Analyzing the past five years of the deployment figures of IPv5 and IPv6 it can be stated that
the deployment figure of IPv6 is the improved version of IPv4 as IPv6 overcome the problem
of IPv4 by providing address size of 126-bits that is of 16 bytes instead of 32-bits that is of
4bytes. This means now the huge amount of internet addresses can be stored. IPv6 is not
compatible backward to IPv4 due to which IPv6 and IPv4 exist as parallel networking [4].
9

Conclusion
The Report compares the two versions of the internet protocol IPv4 and IPv6 on the basis of
its protocol structure, addressing schemes, merits, and demerits, performances and
deployment figures of the past five years. Internet protocol helps us to communicate among
different computers across the network by establishing the link between the hosts this can
only be possible with the help of TCP/IP suite called IP Suite that creates links among the
devices all over the network.
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References
[1]M. Kuehne, "Comparing IPv4 and IPv6 Performance", Circleid.com, 2011.
[Online].Available:http://www.circleid.com/posts/20110101_comparing_ipv4_and_ipv6_perf
ormance/. [Accessed: 18- Aug- 2019].
[2]O. System, A. Chen and A. Chen, "Difference Between IPv4 and IPv6 (With Comparison
Chart) - TechDifferences", Tech Differences, 2019. [Online]. Available:
https://techdifferences.com/difference-between-ipv4-and-ipv6.html. [Accessed: 18- Aug-
2019].
[3]PC Dreams, "IPv4 Vs IPv6 (Advantages and Disadvantages) | PC Dreams", PC Dreams,
2019. [Online]. Available: https://pcdreams.com.sg/ipv4-vs-ipv6-advantages-and-
disadvantages/. [Accessed: 18- Aug- 2019].
[4]"What is the Difference between IPv4 and IPv6? | Juniper Networks", Juniper.net, 2018.
[Online]. Available: https://www.juniper.net/us/en/products-services/what-is/ipv4-vs-ipv6/.
[Accessed: 18- Aug- 2019].
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