IPv4 vs. IPv6: Key Differences and Transition Considerations

As the number of connected devices and the amount of transmitted data continue to grow worldwide, networking professionals face a curious problem: a finite number of IP addresses. Since the early 1980s, each internet-connected device relied on an IPv4 address to ensure it could receive internet traffic and get data. But that’s become trickier as the available number of IPv4 addresses has decreased over the years.

This means that newer devices and servers must have a different way of connecting to the internet and getting the right data. Enter IPv6, an updated version of IPv4, and a way to ensure that every new device that comes online stays connected. But many professionals are wondering: If the majority of my devices already use IPv4, is it really necessary to consider IPv6?

In this article, we’ll explore the basics of IPv4 and IPv6, their main features, when it’s most beneficial to use them, and how the industry is handling the transition.

What is internet protocol?

Internet protocol (IP) are communication rules that help deliver information packets over the internet to specific addresses. IP ensures these packets find the right device and run independently of network infrastructure.

What is IPv4?

This previous IP version is a 32-bit, 11-number IP address. It connects devices to the internet, supports network address translation (NAT) and private IP address creation, and is simple to manage due to its compatibility with the current IP infrastructure.

What is IPv6?

IPv6 is the latest IP version with a 128-bit address configuration. It uses both numbers and letters, which provides more possible addresses for device connectivity. It also allows direct connection at the IP layer and integrates newer security protocols.

IPv6 address is written in a hexadecimal format separated by colons, like:

2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334

The main benefits of IPv6 are massive address space( 340 undecillion addresses), quality of service, enhanced multicasting capabilities, streamlined address configuration, built-in encryption and packet integrity checks, and faster network performance.

Yet even with these improvements, it’s notable that IPv6 is not backward compatible with IPv4 devices, can increase the number of vulnerable devices on a network, and has less widespread adoption.

Why are people moving on from IPv4?

Though IPv4 currently connects many devices around the globe, its 32-bit nature means there’s a finite number of available IP addresses. As the number of internet-connected devices grows, there must be available IP addresses to provide connectivity, which spurred the creation of IPv6. IPv4 also requires an additional network translation layer to properly route data, is less suitable for smart devices, and has different security settings.

IPv4 vs. IPv6: Similarities and differences

At their core, IPv4 and IPv6 are configured to send and receive internet data and route it to the correct devices. Both IPs use packet flow identification to transfer information and have the following similarities:

• Data transmission: Both IPs rely on multi-packet routing to break down data blocks and transmit them across the Internet. These blocks—or packets—are transmitted across the TCP network layer and reassembled at the destination device.

• Naming system: Both protocols are designed to give each connected device its own unique address. This means every internet-connected device has a unique IP address to ensure it gets the data it needs.

• Core protocol: IPv4 and IPv6 are both considered transmission control protocols/internet protocols (TCP/IP). Developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force, both TCP and IP work together to connect devices across the internet or private computing network.

Even with these similarities, there are a couple of main differences between the two protocols. They include:

• Communication types: Both protocols have communication types that allow devices to receive data from multiple sources. IPv4 offers unicast, broadcast, and multicast communication with multipacket routing. IPv6 supports unicast, multicast, and anycast communication.

• Naming: IPv4 uses a numeric address with four decimals ranging from 0 to 255. Each number represents eight bits. IPv6 relies on eight hexadecimal numbers, combining numbers (0-9) and letters (A-F). Each section represents four bits.

• Address space: The main reason behind IPv6’s creation was the increased amount of available IP addresses. With IPv4’s configuration, there are a total of 4,294,967,296 available addresses, with 588 million already reserved. IPv6 provides significantly more address space with 3.403×10³⁸ available addresses. Though a section of these addresses are already reserved, there are exponentially more available.

IPv6 vs. IPv4 at a glance

Main IPv6 advantages over IPv4

Along with increased address space, IPv6 focuses on connecting more devices faster, reducing overall management requirements, and improving security. It does this with a few main upgrades from IPv4:

• Address translation: Unlike IPv4, IPv6 does not require a NAT layer to operate. This improves overall performance and removes additional technical overhead when translating IP addresses.

• Autoconfiguration: IPv4 uses stateless address autoconfiguration (SLAAC) instead of DHCP. This lets the device autoconfigure its own address without an external party or protocol. With this setup, the network has less traffic overall and less tool complexity.

• Routing: IPv6 streamlines routing processes compared to IPv4. It removes NAT and simplifies routing headers, the neighborhood discovery protocol, route aggregation, addressing, and subnetting.

• Security: The IPv6 standard automatically integrates IPsec, more secure routing protocols, and support for privacy extensions.

• Cost: Due to its massive address space, none of the cloud providers charge for it, which can help reduce IP costs of cloud businesses significantly

When would organizations use IPv4?

The majority of the Internet still runs on IPv4. It is used for legacy systems, internal networks, and systems that benefit from having a simpler address standard. A wider range of devices are also IPv4 compatible, but it has much less address space.

When would organizations use IPv6?

As the number of smart and connected devices grows, more organizations are adopting IPv6 to support their IT systems. IPv6 is ideal for organizations that support many smart devices, want specific security measures, simplify overall networking infrastructure, or futureproof their network.

It’s also important to note that many cloud providers rely on IPv4 addresses, and with limited availability, IPv4-connected devices will only increase in cost over time. Transitioning to IPv6 can help control overall costs while improving performance and future device compatibility.

How does IPv6 affect security efforts?

Though IPv6 has more automatically built-in security features than IPv4, this doesn’t mean that security measures should be reduced. Because IPv6 is a newer and more complex protocol, it has more potential attack vectors and less familiarity with detecting and patching security vulnerabilities.

This means that with IPv6 adoption, users must be aware of firewall performance, unwanted pathways created by automatic tunneling, random connections from auto-configuration, hosts with multiple addresses, and limited scanning capabilities across all connected devices.

How ISPs are handling the IPv4 to IPv6 transition

The transition to IPv6 is continuously ongoing, as most organizations still use IPv4 for their networks and connected devices. Still, to help with the transition, most internet service providers and cloud providers are running dual-stack networks, IPv6 tunneling, and network address translation 64/domain name system 64 (NAT64/DNS64) conversion.

• Dual-stack networks are set up so that a connected component can accept traffic from devices that run on both IPv4 and IPv6 standards. It does this by assigning IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to packets and devices.

• IPv6 tunneling enables packets from IPv6 devices to be transmitted over IPv4 networks. This is done by encapsulating the IPv6 packets in an IPv4 header.

• NAT64/DNS64 translation helps IPv6-only clients initiate contact and data transfer with IPv4-only servers and supports communication between the two protocols.

With the combination of dual-stack networks, tunneling, and translation protocols, ISPs and organizations can enable interoperability between IPv4 and IPv6 infrastructure and help organizations prepare for a more substantial transition.

IPv4 vs IPv6 FAQs

Which is better IPv4 or IPv6?

It will depend on your use case and network. IPv4 is the current, widely adopted standard for most legacy systems. IPv6 can provide increased performance and has more available IP addresses as networks grow.

What happens if I disable IPv6?

Anything that is a IPv6-only device, client, or server will not have connectivity, which may affect overall network performance.

Is IPv6 faster than IPv4?

IPv6 runs faster as it does not have the NAT that IPv4 does. However, it uses larger packet sizes, which can be slower across specific networks.

Why is IPv6 not preferred?

Because many legacy systems rely on IPv4, the number of IPv6-compatible devices is much more limited and there are security concerns around IPv6 devices.

Should IPv6 be enabled?

Enabling IPv6 makes sense if organizations have a limited number of IPv4 addresses, large data connectivity requirements, or want to futureproof their networking infrastructure.

What are the disadvantages of IPv6?

IPv6 has a lower compatibility rate with devices, implementation complexity, and increased concerns around security.

Why is IPv6 replacing IPv4?

Because we are running out of available IP addresses with IPv4. IPv6 also provides some technical upgrades regarding network performance, configuration, and management.

What are the advantages of IPv6 over IPv4?

The main advantages of IPv6 over IPv4 include increased address space, removal of the NAT layer, and built-in IPsec security measures.

Can IPv4 and IPv6 coexist in the same network?

Yes. It’s also common practice for organizations that do not solely run one or the other based on networking and device requirements. You can use dual-stack networks to run both IPv4 and IPv6.

How does IPv6 impact network security?

IPv6 makes network security more complex. Its ability to provide more IP addresses increases the number of potential attack points to protect. It’s also a newer standard, which means the industry is still learning about the best ways to protect IPv6-connected devices and networks.

References

• IPv6 Concepts

• IPv6 Limits

• IPv6 Features

Working with IPv6 and DigitalOcean

Though IPv6 adoption is slow and steady, it’s necessary for organizations as the world becomes more connected. This means that your organization should know what’s involved in adoption and implementation and ensure that you have the right tools. Without effective management, networks that support IPv6 (or IPv6 and IPv4) will run into performance, security, and scalability issues—making it much harder for organizations to support their end users and minimize expensive downtime.

With DigitalOcean, our IPv6 support for load balancers makes it easy to distribute traffic from v6 enabled clients keep deployments stable, and futureproof networking infrastructure while ensuring scalable performance for modern apps.

IPv6 support also extends to Reserved IPv6 for Droplets, available in public preview, which allows you to assign, unassign, and reassign IPv6 addresses across different Droplets or to a specific data center. This makes IPv6 address management much more straightforward in addition to retaining IP addresses across Droplets, improving service continuity, and having more control over your network.

Get IPv6 support today.