ADDRESSING

IPv4 uses 32-bit (four-byte) addresses, which limits the address space to 4,294,967,296 (232) possible unique addresses. However, some are reserved for special purposes such as private networks (~18 million addresses) or multicast addresses (~270 million addresses). This reduces the number of addresses that can potentially be allocated for routing on the public Internet. As addresses are being incrementally delegated to end users, an IPv4 address shortage has been developing. However, network addressing architecture redesign via classful network design, Classless Inter-Domain Routing, and network address translation (NAT) have contributed to delay significantly the inevitable exhaustion. This limitation has stimulated the development of IPv6, which is currently in the early stages of deployment, and is the only long-term solution

IPv6
INTERNET PROTOCOL VERSION 6,or IPv4 is an Internet layer protocol developed in the 1990s as an alternative to IPv4. IPv6 is an Internet Layer protocol for packetswitched internetworking and provides an unreliable end-to-end datagram delivery service. The main driving force for the redesign of Internet Protocol was the foreseeable IPv4 address exhaustion. .

Features of IPv6
IPv6 was developed in the 1990s as an alternative to IPv4. IPv6 uses a 128-bit address, whereas IPv4 uses only 32 bits. The new address space supports 2128 (about 3.41038) addresses IPv6 provides new header format that is designed to minimize header overhead. Efficient and hierarchical addressing and routing infrastructure Stateless and stateful address configuration IPV6 provides Built-in security features. Better support for quality of service (QoS) New protocol for neighboring node interaction Extensibility

Advantages of IPv6 over IPv4

Larger address space An IPv6 address is 128 bits long compared with the 32-bit address of IPv4,this is the four fold increase in the address space. Support for Security The encryption and authentication options in IPv6 provides confidentiality and integrity of packets. New Options IPv6 has new options to allow for additional functionalities Support for Resource Allocation In IPv6,the type-of-service field has been removed but a mechanism called flow control has been added.This mechanism can be used to support real-time audio and video. Better Header Format The header of IPv6 has been designed in a way to speed-up the routing process. In header of IPv6 options are separated from the base header. Options are inserted into base header only when required by the upper-layer data. Multicast Multicast means the transmission of a packet to multiple destinations in a single send operation, is part of the base specification in IPv6. In IPv4 this is an optional although commonly implemented feature. Provision for extension IPv6 has been designed in a way that a protocol can be extended easily to meet the requirements of emerging technologies or new applications.

CONCLUSION
The above differences show how advance IPv6 is and how efficient it can be in data transfer. So let us wait for the time when IPv6 completely takes over IPv4