The New Version of the Internet Protocol - Term Paper Example

12 January IPV6 The emergence of the information technology has influenced all the fields of life such as business, health, engineering, manufacturing, communication, entertainment and news and so on. These information technology implementations and revolutions are generally business oriented, with few scholarly applications, some examples include e-mail, customer service, and virtual updates to software, new online multimedia and technology updates. These technologies derived the scientist mind to have such network that can provide such features and high data rate. For this purpose new versions of IPV4, with recognition of IPV-6 and internet2 have been developed. This paper will present a detailed analysis of the new version of the internet protocol (IPV6) and security issues and deployment concerns of the newest version of this Internet Protocol (IPv6). This paper will also follow the current problems with current Internet Protocol (IPv4) and related security issues. Hasenstein (1997) states that the the research and develoment on the internet protocol was started in the 1960s, the computing environment was not the like as it is nowadays. In addition, there was less number of consumers of internet as compared to today. At that time the telecommunications lines used to support the high-speed networks were not so powerful, quick, and error-free as they are today. Also, the appli­cations transmitted over the internet involved smaller data packets, and there was not such a demand to transmit them in real time. As these demands on the internet began to grow, the designers and developers decided to create a modern and up-to-date internet protocol by taking the advantage of the current technology. Consequently, IPv4 was created (Hasenstein; Blumenthal and Clark; R. M. Hinden). According to Hinden (2003), the internet protocol version 6 is the advanced generation Internet Protocol version 4 that was intended to improve the features of IPv4. In addition, internet protocol version 4 was widespread in use that is still in dominant utilization. This IP4 version is the internet layer protocol intended for internetworks of packet-switched method. The fundamental driving force for the renovation of the internet protocol was the anticipated internet protocol version 4 addresses exhaustion that are reduced by increased number of users and machines connected to the internet. The newer version IPv-6 was initially released in December 1998 by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IETF has published an internet standard specification that is RFC 2460, regarding this new version of the internet addressing (R. Hinden). According to Deering & Hinden (1999), IPv6 has an enormously bigger internet address space as compared to the IPv4. This results from utilization of a 128 bit internet address, whereas IPv4 employs simply 32 bits to represent the internet address. In addition, this improved internet addressing space consequently supports 2128 or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 (3.4 × 1038) possible addresses” (Microsoft). Furthermore, this growth offers elasticity in allocating addresses and routing traffic. Also, it reduces the need for NAT (or network address translation), that achieves extensive deployment while an attempt to improve IPv4 internet address exhaustion (Deering and Hinden; Ballani, Francis and Ratnasamy). According to Deering & Hinden (1999), the IPv6 applies modern techniques that contain simple features of address allocation and network renumbering while transforming internet connectivity providers. The subnet size of the IPv6 has been standardized by setting up the volume of the host identifier segment of an intent address to 64-bits to assist an automatic system intended for formulating the host identifier as of Link Layer MAC address (Deering and Hinden). In addition, the network security is incorporated in the current design of the IPv6 structure. Furthermore, the internet protocol security (IPsec) was normally developed as an inbuilt feature of the IPv6. The specifications of the IPv6 enclose internet protocol security implementation like a basic interoperability needs (R. Hinden). Basic Structure and Characteristic Packet structure The basic structure of the IPV-6 packet is given below: IPV 6 Diagram Figure 1- IPV-6 Packet Structure Source[http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2003/12/30/ipv6.html] Version - edition 6 (of 4-bit IP version). Traffic group - packet main concern (8-bits). Priority principles subdivide into variety: traffic where the basis gives overcrowding control and non-congestion manage traffic (Zytrax). Stream label - QoS management (20 bits). At first created for charitable real-time request special service, but currently unused (Zytrax). Next header - state the next encapsulated protocol. The principles are well-matched with those particular for the IPv4 protocol field (8 bits) (Zytrax). Payload length - payload span in bytes (16 bits). When empty to zero, the option is a "Jumbo payload" (hop-by-hop) (Zytrax). Hop boundary - put reverse the time to existing field of IPv4 (8 bits) (Zytrax). Source and target addresses - 128 bits each (Zytrax). Comparison between the structure of IPV4 and IPV6 Comparison between the structure of IPV4 and IPV6 is given below: NO. Characteristic Explanation 1 Addresses IPv6 brings an innovative address at any cast, an identifier for a set of interfaces characteristically in the right place to dissimilar nodes. A packet sent to any cast is delivered to one of the border recognized by that address. On the other hand, IPv-4 uses uni-cast and multicast (Sun Microsystems, Inc.). 2 Expanded Capabilities IPv6 enlarges the amount of IP address from 32 to 128 bits. This makes sure that world would not run out of the IP addresses (Sun Microsystems, Inc.). 3 Better security Here IPV6 offers better security and safety measures for the network data. It possesses larger packet size and more security information about the data set could be inserted in it (Sun Microsystems, Inc.). 4 More capacity However, IP4 is large size network addressing schema. It contains 2^32 address space. On the other hand, IP6 contains 2^128 address space that is enough or extra for this world (Zytrax). 5 Other Differences 1. Simplified header format. IPv6 has a set of fixed length header, which does not comprise the majority of the alternative which an IPv4 header comprises (Sun Microsystems, Inc.). 2. Addresses up to 128 bits. This permits the hierarchical arrangement of the address liberty and offers enough addresses. 3. It is useful for safety and new services/devices that will require manifold IP addresses and/or enduring connectivity. That is not possible with IPV4. 4. A batch of the new IPv6 functionality is constructed into ICMPv6 such as neighbor detection, autocue-figuration, multicast listener finding, trail MTU detection. These services are not available in IP4 (Sun Microsystems, Inc.). 5. Improved Security and QoS Characteristic Influence of the IPV6 This section will discuss the influence of the IPV6 and its associated features on consumers, advertisers, government/defense institutions (Sun Microsystems, Inc.) & (Zytrax) & (University of Illinois): It is an extremely high rate network development for a nonprofit group of universities, industry and government to rapidity the trade of compound information; by making use of it their performance will increase. It will boost the people to serve up a research-related reason. Most importantly, making and a leading edging network ability for the national research community. Directing network growth efforts to allow a new age group of applications to completely utilize the network for more positive and efficient way. Working to quickly relocate modern and up-to-date network services and applications to all stages of educational use and to the broader internet group of people, both locally and worldwide. Generating a national network kept for research and education use will make it better. Enable new types of network applications for all the people on the network whether they belong to universities, industry or government. Transferring and sharing new technology to the public will give them power to access the data and knowledge in more appropriate way. The availability of enhanced security to the internet users. Effective capacity and new features availability inside new communication protocol. Better management of network operations New developments through IPV6 Meriem (2008) states that with the change from IPv4 to IPv6, there is a preparation to transform traditional internet practice into a modern, extremely high-speed network that will cover the United States, huge universities and research hubs at broadcast rates up to a gigabit per second. This high-speed network is called Internet2. In addition, the internet2s inventors plan to give high-speed facility to digital images, music, video, and additional traditional text-based items. In particular, Internet2 has targeted a quantity of primary application regions, counting digital libraries and virtual laboratories (Meriem). Replacing IPV4 Moore (2006) states that the majority of networking professional and internet users are interested in next-generation internet protocol IPv6 and internet2, which will replace the highly successful IPv4, the base of the Internet as we know it. For the reason that, IPv6 overcomes various IPv4 challenges, so the transition to IPv6 seems quite accepted, though it would not be simple. At the present, the internet and networking world remain quite complacent with the performance and working of IPv4 because numerous businesses, organizations, communication and transmission solutions have been invented or developed (primarily we can recognize the network Address Translation or NAT) to overcome the shortage of availability of the globally unique IPV4 addresses. In addition, the network administrators have many doubts about replacing the old with new (Moore). However, with the passage of time, the transition would become necessary and imminent. The sensible network administrators have already begun the preparation to transform from IPV4 to IPV6. They run their business, organization or academic internet applications and networks by using dual-protocol stacks (supporting both IPv6 as well as IPv4) (The SCO Group, Inc.) & (ipv6tf). In addition, IPv6 brings a number of technological efficiencies and advancements, like that a larger address freedom, an additional robust internet security and security measures for the peer-to-peer environment, auto pattern, and improved mobility support, these characteristic offered in a technology vacuum have no match. Despite the fact that, both administration and business leaders are concerned with how problems are resolved, how to develop efficiencies, or how revenue is generated, and cost investments into their business or corporation. In this scenario, IPv6 definitely has the capacity to facilitate and deliver all possible facilities and scenarios; on the other hand, the basic intention of the transformation is find the solution, not the technology facilitated to deliver that solution (Internet Society). Security aspects It is obvious that IPv6 facilitates and supports better online (internet) security for the reason that the specifications authorized in IPV6 contain the IPsec (or IP Security), which is a set of protocols in products. However, the IPv4 hold this IPsec security options as well but as an alternative or optional. Since the IPsec protocol collection is intended to be indifferent to internet protocol architectures, however, the basic technology normally works in the same way in both IPv6 and IPv4. Therefore, the profits of employing IPsec are same in both architectures (Internet Society). Furthermore, the augmented address space that is offered by the IPv6 does eradicate the need to make use of NAT devices; those are persistent in a lot of IPv4 systems. Generally, security is difficult to maintain as well as troubleshoot in the presence of NATs in a network because they interrupt IP layer traceability, consequently online security audit trails. Therefore, because of increased address space getting rid of need to use NATs, IPv6 more powerfully establishes and implements the operations of end-to-end security. In addition, various IPv6 security threats reported at present involve vulnerabilities in individual products, not the IPv6 protocol (Internet Society). Conclusion IPv6 is a new version of IPv4. In addition, IPV6 has turned out to be a vital need because of all the time increasing utilization of the mobile and technology infrastructures. The wide address space facilitates more users to be linked to web as well as better security management in absence of the NATs. This research has presented a detailed analysis of the new generations of the internet technologies and potential enhancements in the overall corporate and business structures using these technologies. This paper has also presented comparison between IPv6 and IPv4. IPv6 is more suitable because it deals with the issues and challenges exist in IPv4. Work Cited 1. 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ISOC.org. 11 January 2009 . 8. ipv6tf. "The Migration from IPv4 to IPv6." 2009. 11 january 2009 . 9. Meriem, Tayeb Ben. "IPv6 and Homenetworking." Meriem, Tayeb Ben. IFIP International Federation for Information Processing. Boston: Springer, 2008. pp. 267-273. 10. Microsoft. "IPv6 address space." 21 January 2005. Microsoft.com. 11 January 2009 . 11. Moore, Keith. "Dubious Assumptions about IPv6." 21 October 2003. www.utk.edu. 11 January 2009 . 12. Sun Microsystems, Inc. "SystemAdministration Guide: IP Services." 2010. Sun.com. 11 January 2009 . 13. The SCO Group, Inc. "Porting IPv4 applications to IPv6." 27 April 2004. www.SCO.com. 11 January 2009 . 14. University of Illinois. "IPv6, MPLS." 2009. uiuc.edu. 11 January 2009 . 15. Zytrax. "Tech Info - Ipv6." 20 July 2007. Zytrax.com. 11 January 2009 . Read More