IPv6 - Here and Now

On Feburary 2nd 2011, The Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA), gave out it's last IPv4 block out to The Regional Internet Regestries (RIR). The RIRs are divided into 5 groups, with the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre hypothesised as being the first to run out of IP addresses in mid-2011. The main difference between the two packet routing protocols, is that IPv4 alots 32-bits for addressing, creating 2^32 (or 4,294,967,296) addresses, where as IPv6 allots 128-bits for addressing, creating 2^128 (or 340 undecillon or 3.4 * 10^38) addresses. IPv6 addressing is also done in hexadecimal to cut down on the size of that 128bit address. IPv6 has many changes aside from a larger addressing space, but the most noticeable one is IPSec. Part of IPSec handles session authentication and encryption in the Internet layer of the TCP/IP model, rather than the Application layer. This will make basic packet transfer much safer, but still requires models such as SSH and SSL to protect Application layer data. They also incorporated many header file fixes, router optimizations, and wireless features, all designed to optimize end-to-end transmission. Most computers and operating systems have IPv6 functionality built in, and most hardware devices will be able to support it with a software update. Theres the overview lockboxx fanatics, you can always go here, for full-on IPv6 details. Lastly, here is a final countdown till IPv4 address are fully exausted. Welcome to the future of the internet guys, get well acquainted, because it's here to stay.