The Importance Of Internet Protocol Version 4

Internet protocol version four (IPv4) is the current networking protocol used by any device that is connected to the network today. Internet protocol defines a set of rules on how data packets are formatted and sent across the Internet or local network (Carroll, 2014). The issue with IPv4 is that its available Internet address space is running out (Banks, 2015). Today, more and more electronic devices will need Internet addresses in order to communicate with other devices. Devices such as internal car sensors, wearable technology like smart watches and even home appliances (Wasik, 2013). The collection of these devices is being called the “Internet of Things” (IoT) (Wasik, 2013). IPv4 simply was not meant to cover so many electronic devices connected to the Internet. IPv4 is limited to 4 billion unique Internet addresses, and IoT will push the need for IPv6, which supports 340 trillion, trillion, trillion unique Internet addresses (Carroll, 2014). …show more content…
Already today, many new electronic devices support IPv6 and in some cases only operate using IPv6 addresses. Due to these recent changes, it is strongly recommended that all internal company network switches be refreshed with the latest models that are both IPv4 and IPv6 complaint. The new network switches will still need to support IPv4 to allow time to migrate over to IPv6. Dual stacking IPv4/IPv6 is currently the industry standard to move forward on IPv6 adoption (Banks,