IPv6 Addressing
Although IPv4 has served us well for a number of years, it is finally starting to reach its end. The main problem with IPv4 is simply that the demand for IP addresses outweighs what IPv4 is capable of providing. That is where IPv6 comes in.
By far, the most significant aspect of IPv6 is its addressing capability. The address range of IPv4 is nearly depleted, and it is widely acknowledged that we are just at the beginning of the digital era. Therefore, we need an addressing scheme that offers more addresses than can possibly be used in the foreseeable future. IPv6 delivers exactly that. Whereas IPv4 uses a 32-bit address, IPv6 uses a 128-bit address that yields a staggering 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 possible addresses!
IPv6 addresses are expressed in a different format from those used in IPv4. An IPv6 address is composed of eight octet pairs expressed in hexadecimal, separated by colons. The following is an example of an IPv6 address:
42DE:7E55:63F2:21AA:CBD4:D773:CC21:554F