Sooner or Later - IPv6

IPv6, it's being implemented in some computer networks already, so, I thought I should write about its addressing and expressions

Ipv6 was originally created as a solution to IPv4's inevitable, looming address-exhaustion crisis, we are indeed running of of IPv4. There have been controversies over if its really worth upgrading from IPv4 to IPv6, personally I think the benefits of IPv6 over IPv4 is worth and outweighs the stress involved in migrating from IPv4 to Ipv6. Asides from the obvious larger addresses , the processing speed is increased, routing is much more efficient and scalable, less consumption of bandwidth as broadcast is eliminated in IPv6 and to top it all, IPv6 by default has been flavoured with IPSec- a feature that provides end-to-end security. IPv6 is really going rock our world with all these features

Now, lets talk about its addressing and expressions. Below is a sample of IPv6 

                 2001:0db8:3c4d:0012:0000:0000:1234:56ab

IPv6 address has eight 16-bit hexadecimal colon-delimited blocks . It's quite a long address but there are few tricks to shorten this expression.  Read these tricks after the cut

Firstly, you can drop the leading zeros in each of the individual blocks. So, the sample address from earlier would then look like this: 

2001:db8:3c4d:12:0:0:1234:56ab

Secondly, you can replace only one contiguous block of zeros in an address with a doubled colon, this means if your address has four blocks of zeros , you don't replace all four blocks with two doubled colons but just the first two blocks can be replaced with a doubled colon. For example: 2001:0000:0000:0012:0000:0000:1234:56ab

And, just so you know this is wrong: 2001::12::1234:56ab

Instead, this is the best you can do: 2001::12:0:0:1234:56ab

IPv6 Address types include:                  Special Addressess include

• Global unicast                             1) 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 equals ::.
• Link-local                                   2) 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 equals ::1 
• Unique local                                3) 2000::/3    The global unicast address range
• Multicast                                     4) FC00::/7   The unique local unicast range
• Anycast                                       5) FE80::/10  The link-local unicast range
• Unicast                                        6) FF00::/8    The multicast range  
•                                                    7) 2002::/16   Used for 6to4 tunneling 

I hope this shed a little light on addressing and expression of IPv6...cheers!!!