Breaking down an IPv6 address: What it all means

[Borg 386]

Nick Hardiman explains the seemingly arcane engineering of the IPv6 address. Find out what makes it tick.

Breaking down an IPv6 address: What it all means - TechRepublic

 

[chev65]

Good read Borg, pretty simple after it's all broken down.

There are a few more things to know about IPv6 and what Windows uses it for and why it should never be disabled.

The Argument against Disabling IPv6.

It is unfortunate that some organizations disable IPv6 on their computers running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, where it is installed and enabled by default. Many disable IPv6-based on the assumption that they are not running any applications or services that use it. Others might disable it because of a misperception that having both IPv4 and IPv6 enabled effectively doubles their DNS and Web traffic. This is not true.
From Microsoft's perspective, IPv6 is a mandatory part of the Windows operating system and it is enabled and included in standard Windows service and application testing during the operating system development process. Because Windows was designed specifically with IPv6 present, Microsoft does not perform any testing to determine the effects of disabling IPv6. If IPv6 is disabled on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, or later versions, some components will not function. Moreover, applications that you might not think are using IPv6—such as Remote Assistance, HomeGroup, DirectAccess, and Windows Mail—could be.
Therefore, Microsoft recommends that you leave IPv6 enabled, even if you do not have an IPv6-enabled network, either native or tunneled. By leaving IPv6 enabled, you do not disable IPv6-only applications and services (for example, HomeGroup in Windows 7 and DirectAccess in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are IPv6-only) and your hosts can take advantage of IPv6-enhanced connectivity.

Source: > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.07.cableguy.aspx

 

[Slartybart]

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IPv6 | Internet Society

IPv6 is the next generation Internet Protocol (IP) address standard that will supplement and eventually replace IPv4, the protocol most Internet services use today.


Why It Matters
An IP address is basically a postal address for each and every Internet-connected device. Without one, websites would not know where to send the information each time you perform a search or try to access a website. However, the world officially ran out of the 4.3 billion available IPv4 addresses in February 2011 .

Yet, hundreds of millions of people are still to come online, many of whom will do so in the next few years. IPv6 is what will allow them to do so, providing enough addresses (2128 to be exact) for everyone and all of their various devices.

A lack of Internet addresses would have caused many problems; your favourite web programmes would slow down, computers would find it more difficult to communicate with one another, and your privacy could be compromised because it will be hard to tell the difference between you and another computer user down the street.

To allow the Internet to continue to grow and spread across the world, implementing IPv6 is necessary.