Can someone explain further the differences of IPv4 vs. IPv6?

Question

I know we talked briefly about this topic in class today but maybe there's another resource that extends the discussion on this topic and relates it to real life examples. But I want to know the main differences, positives/negatives, and additional features that each provide to devices on a network.

Answer 1

IPv4 and IPv6 are mostly the same in terms of structure, but with one big difference: IPv6 uses 128 bit addresses rather than 32 bit addresses. That's more unique IPv6 addresses than atoms on Earth, making it completely future proof.

One big advantage is that is eliminates the need for NAT, making peer to peer connections much easier to create. And it also has a cryptographic technology called IPsec built in, which makes it much harder to inject malware into packets.

The only real negatives holding back adoption are the cost of adoption, and the need for special gateways to communicate between IPv4 and IPv6. There's likely a bit of a learning curve for those used to implementing IPv4 as well.

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