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Sitting at the office of an International Carrier the other day, I was informed that they have implemented IPv6. Stepping out of the meeting, I gave a call to my friends at the technology department to inquire where we were on the same. I was informed that we had already implemented IPv6 on our backbone! Technology prowess at Sify is often one of the best kept secrets. While we implemented MPLS on our network way back in 2002, later entrants in 2004 went around tom-toming about it as if it were the first time!
The protocol prevalent in the networks today is IPv4, and over time, one of the most glaring shortcomings of this robust protocol is the lack of address space. Today, IP Addresses are being rationed. For instance, when one logs on to the Internet, an IP Address is allocated only for the duration of the session. With the fast paced growth of new generation multi-purpose peer-to-peer Internet devices like mobile phones, PDAs etc which operate in an always-on mode, we do need a large pool of addresses. Applications like video-on-demand will further accentuate the need. Next generation IP controlled devices like lighting, heating and cooling equipment (to name a few) would need unique addresses. So clearly, there was a need to introduce the Next Generation Internet Protocol (IPng) which would address the above and much more. The formal name of this protocol is IPv6, where 6 is the version number.
In IPv6, the address space has been raised to 128 bits, generating 340, 282,366,920,938,463,374,607, 431,768,211,456 addressable nodes, up from the 4,200,000,000 addressable nodes of the 32 bits IPv4 address space! In addition to enhanced routing and addressing capabilities, IPv6 provides other features including strong security, mobility, authentication, quality of service and plug and play capabilities.
One question that comes to mind is, what happened to IPv5? IPng was initiated in 1994 (to be implemented by 1996!) and it should have logically become IPv5. But IPv5 was already in existence at that time Ð it used the same addressing scheme and was to co-exist with IPv4, and not replace it! Internet Streaming Protocol (called ST in 1970s, which evolved to ST2 by the 90Õs) was christened IPv5 with built-in quality of service capabilities. We may never get to use IPv5 as envisaged and leap-frog straight to 6 for all practical purposes!
Rahul Swarup
President
Sify Enterprise Solution
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