Internet Protocol version 6 Overview*

Abstract: IP stands for “Internet Protocol ” and it was designed during the ‘70s with the purpose of interconnecting heterogeneous network technologies. IP was a huge success, and made it possible to create today’s Internet. Currently, the Internet is predominantly using the fourth version of IP (IPv4), however the huge success of the Internet is pushing IPv4 to its limits. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) designed IPv6 to become the replacement for IPv4. IPv6 solves most of the major problems of IPv4 and has several new features. This paper presents an overview of the IPv6 protocol, discussing its operation, its addressing architecture, its header format, the neighbor discovery protocol and one of the major issues of IPv6: how to transition from IPv4; presenting a set of transition mechanisms that provide communication between IPv4 and IPv6