IP6 In Windows

Did you know that on January 31, 2011, the last two large blocks of IP address space (referred to as a “Class A” or “/8”) were allocated by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) to the Regional Internet Registry in Asia Pacific? By any measure, the Internet is rapidly running out of IP address space. Yet concern and anxiety continues to build amongst administrators and IT professionals. How did we get here? Should we fear the unknown or is the IP addressing problem really an overblown ball of hype?

IPv4 (defined in detail in RFC 791) was designed in the early 1980s. It uses 32-bit addresses, providing for almost 4.3 billion addresses across the entire range. However, some of these address ranges are reserved for special purposes, including private networks, multicast and other purposes. Many large IP address blocks were assigned to educational institutions and government agencies (e.g.: the 18.0.0.0/8 address range is designated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Of course, at the time this was considered more than enough address space given the fairly limited scope of IP-based device deployment and adoption.
We all know that the world has changed over the past 30 years, so has the demand for IP addresses. IPv6 was designed to meet the ever-growing demand for IP addresses with a nearly unfathomable 128-bit address space. With approximately 3.4 x 10^38 available addresses, IPv6 is hoping to develop a new era where devices that we seldom think twice about (refrigerators, toasters, etc.) will be able to communicate with each other over IP. (That’s right; your washer will be able to send you an email when the clothes are clean!) What an exciting time to be working in IT, right?
IP address syntax looks very different in IPv6 than in IPv4; an example might look like 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334. IPv6 addresses are divided into two sections; there is a 64 bit network prefix and a 64 bit interface identifier. There are three types of IPv6 addresses: unicast addresses (identifies each network interface), anycast addresses (identifies a group of interfaces) and multicast addresses (used to deliver one packet to many interfaces). There are also reserved IPv6 addresses for specific purposes, such as the loopback address, link-local addresses (for use in the local network only) and solicited-node multicast addresses (used to discover neighboring nodes via the Neighbor Discovery Protocol).
IPv6 also implements new features that were ‘baked in’ during the design phase of the protocol, versus attempted to be bolted on later with IPv4. It provides a much simpler method of assigning addresses to client devices. IP Security (IP Sec) is now integrated into IPv6 and is mandated in the standard specifications (RFC 2401 has a great explanation of this if you’re looking to dive deeper). IPv6 deployment may eventually lead to the removal of Network Address Translation; due to the tremendous amount of IPv6 addresses available, expect industry to focus more and more on the host-based security approach (see the Jericho Forum to learn about this concept).
While IT Pros may be hesitant to look at adoption of IPv6 just yet, many network teams have already prepared the network infrastructure in organizations all over the world. In fact, the network geeks are often eager to discuss a potential migration to IPv6 on the corporate network and/or running in what’s called “dual stack” mode where devices can speak IPv6 and IPv4. So, what’s holding back adoption? Backwards compatibility and business need. In 2005 a Department of Defense mandate requiring that network equipment manufacturers support IPv6 for devices the DOD was procuring. Most relatively modern deployments of routers, switches and other networking gear in the enterprise likely support IPv6; the orchestration of configuration and deployment between teams is what’s essential to making it work effectively. Deploying a new IP protocol on a corporate network is something that hasn’t been attempted in many organizations and will require teamwork and transparency from the different teams involved.

Source At WindowsSercurity.Com