IPv6 is the successor to IPv4. IPv4 and IPv6 are the internet protocols that all networks use to communicate. IPv4 is still dominate today on the internet. The reason for IPv6 is simple, the world is running out of IPv4 addresses. So IPv6 was created in 1998 to create more available public IP addresses. IPv4 gives you about 4 billion addresses. To put this in perspective the size of a subnet alone in IPv6 is 2 to the 64th power. Or the square of the entire IPv4 internet. To further put this in perspective with IPv6 you can have 340 trillion trillion trillion unique addresses.

IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses where IPv4 only uses 32bit addresses. This greatly increases the amount of IP’s available. This eliminates the need for NAT or network address translation. This is where you can assing different ports on your firewall but use the same external IP. It will then route to different hosts inside your network. posse.