Back in the 1980s, it was unimaginable that anyone would ever need more than 4 billion addresses, but we do. They (the keepers of the Internet) realized in the 1990s that there was going to be a problem and decided that a new Layer 3 would be needed.

IPv6 is the solution to the IPv4 address depletion. IPv6 uses a fixed-length IP header with the capability of carrying more information in an extension to the header known as an extension header.

The improvements found in IPv6 are:

• Increased address space
• Hierarchical routing to reduce the load on Internet backbone routers
• Simpler configuration through automatic address management
• Inclusion of encryption services for data security
• Quality of service
• Extensibility to support new features

• IPv6 Address Notation
• IPv6 Address Types
• Methods for Configuring IPv6
• Troubleshooting IPv6 Settings