NETWORK LAYER

By - Sneha Nandanwar
 NETWORK LAYER
⚫ The network layer is concerned with getting packets from the
source all the way to the destination.
⚫ Getting to the destination may require making many hops at
intermediate routers along the way.
⚫ The network layer is the lowest layer that deals with end-to-end
transmission.
⚫ To achieve its goals, the network layer must know about the
topology of the network (i.e., the set of all routers and links) and
choose appropriate paths through it, even for large networks.
⚫ It must also take care when choosing routes to avoid overloading
some of the communication lines and routers while leaving
others idle.
 NETWORK LAYER SERVICES
⚫ Packetization- The network layer works on the conversion of
packets those received from its upper layer.
⚫ Logical Addressing-Maintains both the source and destination
addresses at the frame header. The network layer performs
addressing to find out the specific devices on the network.
⚫ Internetworking- It is possible as the physical and data link
layer work together to deliver the data packets from one node to
another node in the network.
⚫ Fragmentation
⚫ Routing & Forwarding- When packet reaches at the input of
the router, then the router should move the packet to an
appropriate link
 PACKET SWITCHING
⚫ Packet switching is a method of transferring the data to a
network in form of packets.

⚫ In order to transfer the file fast and efficient manner over the
network and minimize the transmission latency, the data is
broken into small pieces of variable length, called Packet.

⚫ At the destination, all these small-parts (packets) has to be

reassembled, belonging to the same file.

⚫ A packet composes of payload and various control information.

Connectionless Packet Switching
(Datagram)
 Connectionless Packet Switching
(Datagram)
⚫ In Connectionless Packet Switching each packet contains all
necessary addressing information such as source address,
destination address and port numbers etc.
⚫ In Datagram Packet Switching, each packet is treated
independently.
⚫ Packets belonging to one flow may take different routes because
routing decisions are made dynamically, so the packets arrived at
destination might be out of order.
⚫ It has no connection setup and teardown phase.
⚫ Packet delivery is not guaranteed in connectionless packet
switching, so the reliable delivery must be provided by end
systems using additional protocols.
Connection-oriented Packet Switching
(Virtual Circuit)
 Connection-oriented Packet Switching
(Virtual Circuit)
⚫ Before starting the transmission, it establishes a logical path or
virtual connection using signalling protocol, between sender and
receiver and all packets belongs to this flow will follow this
predefined route.
⚫ Virtual Circuit ID is provided by switches/routers to uniquely
identify this virtual connection.
⚫ Data is divided into small units and all these small units are
appended with help of sequence number.
⚫ Overall, three phases takes place here- Setup, data transfer
and tear down phase.
⚫ All address information is only transferred during setup phase.
 PERFORMANCE OF NETWORK
LAYER
Performance of Network Layer is measured in terms of:

⚫ Bandwidth
⚫ Throughput
⚫ Latency
⚫ Jitter
⚫ Error Rate
 IPv4 Addressing
⚫ IP stands for Internet Protocol and v4 stands for Version
Four (IPv4).
⚫ IPv4 was the primary version brought into action for
production within the ARPANET in 1983.
⚫ Each IPv4-based network must have the following:
⮚ A unique network number that is assigned by either an ISP,
an IR, or, for older networks, registered by the IANA. If you
plan to use private addresses, the network numbers you
devise must be unique within your organization.
⮚ Unique IPv4 addresses for the interfaces of every system on
the network.
⮚ IPv4 could be a 32-Bit IP Address.
 IPv4 Address
⚫ The IPv4 address is a 32-bit number that uniquely identifies
a network interface on a system.

⚫ An IPv4 address is written in decimal digits, divided into

four 8-bit fields that are separated by periods. Each 8-bit
field represents a byte of the IPv4 address.
 IPv4 Addressing
⚫ NOTATIONS:
⮚ Binary Notations: 10000000 00001011 00000011
00011111
⮚ Dotted Decimal Notations: 128.11.3.31
⮚ Hexadecimal Notations: 80 0B 03 1F
⮚ 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
• ADDRESSING MODE:
⮚ Unicast Addressing Mode
⮚ Broadcast Addressing Mode
⮚ Multicast Addressing Mode
⮚ Unicast Addressing Mode

⮚ unicast is a one-to-one transmission from one point in

the network to another point; that is, one sender and one
receiver, each identified by a network address.
⮚ Broadcast Addressing Mode

⮚ Here, the data is sent to all the devices in the network, i.e.,
multiple hosts.
⮚ Broadcast is possible also on the underlying data link layer in
Ethernet networks.
⮚ Frames are addressed to reach every computer on a given
LAN segment if they are addressed to MAC address
FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF.
⮚ Ethernet frames that contain IP broadcast packages are
usually sent to this address.
⮚ Multicast Addressing Mode

⮚ Multicasting is considered as the special case of

broadcasting as.it works in similar to Broadcasting, but
in Multicasting, the information is sent to the targeted
or specific members of the network.

⮚ This process helps in minimizing the data frame of the

network because at once the data can be received by
multiple nodes.
 CLASSFUL ADDRESSING

Classful Addressing

The 32 bit IP address is divided into five sub-classes. These are:

⚫ Class A
⚫ Class B
⚫ Class C
⚫ Class D
⚫ Class E
⚫ Each of these classes has a valid range of IP addresses. Classes D
and E are reserved for multicast and experimental purposes
respectively.
⚫ The order of bits in the first octet determine the classes of IP
address.
CLASSFUL ADDRESSING
 CLASSFUL ADDRESSING

⚫ Class A- 0-127, Class B-128-191, Class C-192-223,Class D-224-239, Class

E-240-255

⚫ Class A (0.0.0.0 to 127.255.255.255) for general use. Class A addresses are

for large networks; they use 8 bits for the network ID and 24 bits for the host
ID.

⚫ Class B (128.0.0.0 to 191.255.255.255) for general use. Class B addresses

are for intermediate networks; they use 16-bit host addresses and 16-bit
network addresses.

⚫ Class C (192.0.0.0 to 223.255.255.255) for general use. Class C addresses

have only 8 bits for the host address, limiting the number of devices to 256.
There are 24 bits for the network address.
 CLASSFUL ADDRESSING
⚫ Class D (224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255) multicast. Class D is for
multicast purposes only; the manner of operation is that each
multicast address represents a particular group of hosts. \

⚫ Class E (240.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255) reserved. Class

E addresses have historically been reserved for use by the IETF
for experimental purposes, but IANA is currently in the process
of changing the designation to private use.
 CLASSFUL ADDRESSING
⚫ Masks for Class A,B and C.

CLASS Binary Dotted Decimal

A 11111111 00000000 00000000 00000000 255.0.0.0

B 11111111 11111111 00000000 00000000 255.255.0.0

C 11111111 11111111 11111111 00000000 255.255.255.0

 CLASSFUL ADDRESSING

Limitation
Internet uses class A, B, and C addresses.

The issue with IPv4 classful addressing is that thousands of class A

addresses are wasted, including many class B addresses and a few
class C addresses that are insufficient to meet the demands of
companies.

Due to these issues, Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) has

taken the place of classful networking.
 SUBNETTING
⚫ Subnetting is the technique of partitioning a large network into
smaller networks.
⚫ Suppose we take a network of class A. So, in class A, we have 2² ⁴ hosts.
⚫ So to manage such a large number of hosts is tedious. So if we divide
this large network into the smaller network then maintaining each
network would be easy.
⚫ The router inside the network will have the routing table which will
be as follows:

Network ID Subnet Mask Interface

201.10.1.0 255.255.255.0 a
201.10.1.128 255.255.255.0 b
SUBNETTING
 SUPERNETTING
⚫ It is the opposite of Subnetting. In this multiple smaller networks
are combined together to form a large network.
⚫ All the networks are not suitable for aggregation. There are some rules
according to which the network can be aggregated. For any network to
be aggregated it should follow three rules.
⮚ Contiguous: All the networks should be contiguous.
⮚ Same size: All the networks should be of the same size and also a
power of 2 i.e. 2^n.
⮚ Divisibility: The first network ID should be divisible by the size of the
block.
• Suppose we have four small networks with network ID as 201.1.0.0,
201.1.1.0, 201.1.2.0, 201.1.3.0.
• Supernet Mask is a 32-bit number where all the fixed bits of the
network are represented by 1 and the variable part is represented by 0.
SUPERNETTING
 CLASSFUL ADDRESSING
Disadvantage of Classful Addressing:
⚫ Wastage in IP address
⚫ Maintenance of large network becomes difficult.
⚫ More prone to errors.
 CLASSLESS ADDRESSING
⚫ Classless Addressing is an improved IP Addressing system which
makes the allocation of IP Addresses more efficient.
⚫ It replaces the older classful addressing system based on classes.
⚫ It is also known as Classless Inter Domain Routing (CIDR).
⚫ ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)
assigns a large block of addresses to ISP (Internet service provider)
from which ISP assigns a variable-size block of addresses to the
midsize organization, individual, small commercial companies.
⚫ In classless addressing, the block of addresses assigned to the
customers is according to their requirement which prevents the
wastage of addresses.
 CLASSLESS ADDRESSING
CIDR Block-

⚫ When a user asks for specific number of IP Addresses,

⚫ CIDR dynamically assigns a block of IP Addresses based on certain

rules.

⚫ This block contains the required number of IP Addresses as demanded

by the user. This block of IP Addresses is called as a CIDR block.

Rules For Creating CIDR Block-

⚫ All the IP Addresses in the CIDR block must be contiguous.

⚫ The size of the block must be presentable as power of 2.

⚫ First IP Address of the block must be divisible by the size of the block.
 CLASSLESS ADDRESSING
CIDR Notation-

⚫ CIDR IP Addresses look like-

⚫ a.b.c.d / n 🡪 182.0.1.2 / 28
⚫ They end with a slash followed by a number called as IP network
prefix.
⚫ IP network prefix tells the number of bits used for the identification of
network.
⚫ Remaining bits are used for the identification of hosts in the network.
 CLASSLESS ADDRESSING
Extraction of block information:

⮚ The number of host addresses in a block

⚫ N=232-n
⚫ N is the number of host addresses in a block and n is the length
of the prefix.
⮚ The first address of a block
⚫ First Address = (any address) AND (network mask)
⮚ Last address of a block
⚫ Last Address = (any address) OR [NOT (network mask)]
 CLASSLESS ADDRESSING
EXAMPLE

⚫ IPv4 Address:167.199.170.82/27
⚫ Prefix= 27 Suffix=32-27=5
⚫ N=232-n
=232-27
=25
=32
IPv4 HEADER FORMAT
 IPv4 HEADER FORMAT
⚫ Version − Version no. of Internet Protocol used (e.g. IPv4).

⚫ IHL − Internet Header Length; Length of entire IP header.

⚫ DSCP − Differentiated Services Code Point; this is Type of Service.

⚫ ECN − Explicit Congestion Notification; It carries information

about the congestion seen in the route.

⚫ Total Length − Length of entire IP Packet (including IP header and

IP Payload).

⚫ Identification − If IP packet is fragmented during the transmission,

all the fragments contain same identification number. to identify
original IP packet they belong to.
 IPv4 Header Format
⚫ Flags − As required by the network resources, if IP Packet is too
large to handle, these ‘flags’ tells if they can be fragmented or
not. In this 3-bit flag, the MSB is always set to ‘0’.
⚫ Fragment Offset − This offset tells the exact position of the
fragment in the original IP Packet.
⚫ Time to Live − To avoid looping in the network, every packet is
sent with some TTL value set, which tells the network how many
routers (hops) this packet can cross. At each hop, its value is
decremented by one and when the value reaches zero, the packet
is discarded.
⚫ Protocol − Tells the Network layer at the destination host, to
which Protocol this packet belongs to, i.e. the next level
Protocol. For example protocol number of ICMP is 1, TCP is 6
and UDP is 17.
 IPv4 HEADER FORMAT
⚫ Header Checksum − This field is used to keep checksum value of entire

header which is then used to check if the packet is received error-free.

⚫ Source Address − 32-bit address of the Sender (or source) of the packet.

⚫ Destination Address − 32-bit address of the Receiver (or destination) of

the packet.

⚫ Options − This is optional field, which is used if the value of IHL is

greater than 5. These options may contain values for options such as
Security, Record Route, Time Stamp, etc.
 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP)
⚫ Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a networking
protocol for dynamically assigning IP addresses to each host
on your organization's network.

⚫ DHCP also assigns Domain Name System (DNS) addresses,

subnet masks, and default gateways.
 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP)
⚫ Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network
management protocol used to automate the process of configuring
devices on IP networks, thus allowing them to use network
services such as DNS, NTP, and any communication protocol
based on UDP or TCP.

⚫ A DHCP server dynamically assigns an IP address and other

network configuration parameters to each device on a network so
they can communicate with other IP networks.

⚫ DHCP is an enhancement of an older protocol called BOOTP.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP)
 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP)
⚫ Operation Code- specifies the type of the Dynamic Host
Configuration Protocol (DHCP) message. Set to 1 in messages
sent by a client (requests) and 2 in messages sent by a server
(response).
⚫ Hardware Type- specifies the network LAN architecture. For
example, the ethernet type is specified when htype is set to 1
⚫ Hardware Address Length- Layer 2 (Data-link layer) address
length (MAC address) (in bytes); defines the length of hardware
address in the chaddr field. For Ethernet (Most widely used LAN
Standard), this value is 6.
⚫ Hops- Number of relay agents that have forwarded this message.
⚫ Transaction identifier- used by clients to match responses from
servers with previously transmitted requests.
 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP)
⚫ Seconds-Elapsed time (in seconds) since the client began the
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) process.
⚫ Flags-Flags field is called the broadcast bit, can be set to 1 to
indicate that messages to the client must be broadcast
⚫ Ciaddr-Client's IP address; set by the client when the client has
confirmed that its IP address is valid.
⚫ Yiaddr-Client's IP address; set by the server to inform the client
of the client's IP address.
⚫ siaddrIP address of the next server for the client to use in the
configuration process (for example, the server to contact for
TFTP download of an operating system kernel).
 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP)
⚫ Giaddr-Relay agent (gateway) IP address; filled in by the relay
agent with the address of the interface through which Dynamic
Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) message was received.

⚫ Chaddr-Client's hardware address (Layer 2 address).

⚫ Sname-Name of the next server for client to use in the

configuration process.

⚫ File-Name of the file for the client to request from the next server
(for example the name of the file that contains the operating
system for this client).
 NETWORK ADDRESS
TRANSLATION (NAT)
⚫ To access the Internet, one public IP address is needed, but we
can use a private IP address in our private network.
⚫ The idea of NAT is to allow multiple devices to access the
Internet through a single public address.
⚫ To achieve this, the translation of private IP address to a public
IP address is required.
⚫ Network Address Translation (NAT) is a process in which one
or more local IP address is translated into one or more
Global IP address and vice versa in order to provide Internet
access to the local hosts.
 NETWORK ADDRESS
TRANSLATION (NAT)
⚫ Generally, the border router is configured for NAT i.e the router
which has one interface in local (inside) network and one
interface in the global (outside) network.
⚫ When a packet traverse outside the local (inside) network,
then NAT converts that local (private) IP address to a global
(public) IP address.
⚫ When a packet enters the local network, the global (public) IP
address is converted to a local (private) IP address.
⚫ If NAT run out of addresses, i.e., no address is left in the pool
configured then the packets will be dropped and an Internet
Control Message Protocol (ICMP) host unreachable packet to the
destination is sent.
NETWORK ADDRESS
TRANSLATION (NAT)
NETWORK ADDRESS
TRANSLATION (NAT)
 DISTANCE VECTOR ROUTING
ALGORITHM
⚫ Distance vector algorithms are based on the work done of R. E.
Bellman, L. R. Ford, and D. R. Fulkerson and for this reason
occasionally are referred to as Bellman-Ford or Ford-
Fulkerson algorithms.
⚫ The name distance vector is derived from the fact that routes are
advertised as vectors of (distance, direction), where distance is
defined in terms of a metric and direction is defined in terms of
the next-hop router.
⚫ A typical distance vector routing protocol uses a routing
algorithm in which routers periodically send routing updates to
all neighbors by broadcasting their entire route tables.
⚫ It is mainly used in ARPANET and RIP.
 DISTANCE VECTOR ROUTING
ALGORITHM
Bellman-Ford Algorithm
 Define distances at each node X
◆ dx(y) = cost of least-cost path from X to Y
 Update distances based on neighbors
◆ dx(y) = min {c(x,v) + dv(y)} over all neighbors V
v 2 y
3 1
1
u
x 4 z
2 1
5 t du(z) = min{c(u,v) + dv(z),
w4 3
s c(u,w) + dw(z)}
49
 DISTANCE VECTOR ROUTING
ALGORITHM
Each node:
Distance Vector Algorithm
Iterative, asynchronous: each wait for (change in local link
local iteration caused by: cost or message from
neighbor)
 Local link cost change
 Distance vector update
message from neighbor
recompute estimates
Distributed:
 Each node notifies neighbors if distance to any destination
only when its DV changes has changed, notify
 Neighbors then notify their neighbors
neighbors if necessary
50
 DISTANCE VECTOR ROUTING
ALGORITHM
STEP BY STEP WORKING
 c(x,v) = cost for direct link from x to v
◆ Node x maintains costs of direct links c(x,v)

 Dx(y) = estimate of least cost from x to y

◆ Node x maintains distance vector Dx = [Dx(y): y є N ]

 Node x maintains its neighborsʼ distance vectors

◆ For each neighbor v, x maintains Dv = [Dv(y): y є N ]

 Each node v periodically sends Dv to its neighbors

◆ And neighbors update their own distance vectors
◆ Dx(y) ← minv{c(x,v) + Dv(y)} for each node y ∊ N
51
 PATH VECTOR ROUTING
⚫ A path vector protocol is essentially a distance vector protocol
that does not rely on the distance to destination to guarantee a
loop-free path but instead relies on the analysis of the path
itself.
⚫ It is typically deployed in environments where it is difficult to
guarantee a consistent metric (distance) across the routing
domain.
⚫ The path is accumulated at each router, and carried in each
advertisement, so that any router receiving it can validate the
loop-free path before propagating the information.
 LINK STATE ROUTING
⚫ Link state routing is a technique in which each router shares the
knowledge of its neighborhood with every other router in the
internetwork.
⚫ The three keys to understand the Link State Routing algorithm:
⚫ Knowledge about the neighborhood: Instead of sending its
routing table, a router sends the information about its neighborhood
only. A router broadcast its identities and cost of the directly
attached links to other routers.
⚫ Flooding: Each router sends the information to every other router
on the internetwork except its neighbors. This process is known as
Flooding. Every router that receives the packet sends the copies to
all its neighbors. Finally, each and every router receives a copy of
the same information.
⚫ Information sharing: A router sends the information to every other
router only when the change occurs in the information.
 LINK STATE ROUTING
⚫ Link State Routing has two phases:
Reliable Flooding
⚫ Initial state: Each node knows the cost of its neighbors.
⚫ Final state: Each node knows the entire graph.
Route Calculation
⚫ Each node uses Dijkstra's algorithm on the graph to calculate the
optimal routes to all nodes.
⚫ The Link state routing algorithm is also known as Dijkstra's
algorithm which is used to find the shortest path from one node
to every other node in the network.
⚫ The Dijkstra's algorithm is an iterative, and it has the property
that after kth iteration of the algorithm, the least cost paths are
well known for k destination nodes
PATH VECTOR ROUTING
⚫ A path vector protocol is essentially a distance vector protocol that
does not rely on the distance to destination to guarantee a loop-free
path but instead relies on the analysis of the path itself.
⚫ It is typically deployed in environments where it is difficult to
guarantee a consistent metric (distance) across the routing domain.
⚫ The path is accumulated at each router, and carried in each
advertisement, so that any router receiving it can validate the loop-
free path before propagating the information.
⚫ BGP is the best example of an RP using this technology.
⚫ The main drawback is the size of the advertisements, which grow
with the number of hops.
 PATH VECTOR ROUTING
⚫ Path Vector Routing follows three rules:
⮚ Loop Prevention
⮚ Policy Routing
⮚ Optimum Path
 ROUTING PROTOCOLS-RIP
⚫ Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is a dynamic routing
protocol which uses hop count as a routing metric to find the best
path between the source and the destination network. It is a
distance vector routing protocol. RIP uses port number 520.
⚫ Hop Count :
Hop count is the number of routers occurring in between the source
and destination network. The path with the lowest hop count is
considered as the best route to reach a network and therefore placed
in the routing table. RIP prevents routing loops by limiting the
number of hopes allowed in a path from source and destination. The
maximum hop count allowed for RIP is 15 and hop count of 16 is
considered as network unreachable.
 ROUTING PROTOCOLS-RIP
Points to remember in RIP
⚫ RIP is based on the distance vector-based strategy, so we consider
the entire structure as a graph where nodes are the routers, and the
links are the networks.
⚫ In a routing table, the first column is the destination, or we can say
that it is a network address.
⚫ The cost metric is the number of hops to reach the destination. The
number of hops available in a network would be the cost. The hop
count is the number of networks required to reach the destination.
⚫ In RIP, infinity is defined as 16, which means that the RIP is useful
for smaller networks or small autonomous systems. The maximum
number of hops that RIP can contain is 15 hops, i.e., it should not
have more than 15 hops as 16 is infinity.
⚫ The next column contains the address of the router to which the
packet is to be sent to reach the destination.
ROUTING PROTOCOLS-RIP
 OPEN SHORTEST PATH FIRST
(OSPF) PROTOCOL
⚫ The OSPF protocol is a link-state routing protocol, which means that

the routers exchange topology information with their nearest neighbors.

⚫ The topology information is flooded throughout the AS, so that every

router within the AS has a complete picture of the topology of the AS.

⚫ This picture is then used to calculate end-to-end paths through the AS,

normally using a variant of the Dijkstra algorithm.

⚫ Therefore, in a link-state routing protocol, the next hop address to

which data is forwarded is determined by choosing the best end-to-end

path to the eventual destination.
 OPEN SHORTEST PATH FIRST
(OSPF) PROTOCOL
⚫ The main advantage of a link state routing protocol like OSPF is
that the complete knowledge of topology allows routers to
calculate routes that satisfy particular criteria.

⚫ This can be useful for traffic engineering purposes, where routes

can be constrained to meet particular quality of service
requirements.

⚫ The main disadvantage of a link state routing protocol is that it

does not scale well as more routers are added to the routing
domain.
OPEN SHORTEST PATH FIRST
(OSPF) PROTOCOL
 OPEN SHORTEST PATH FIRST
(OSPF) PROTOCOL
⚫ There are four types of links in OSPF:

⚫ Point-to-point link: The point-to-point link directly connects the two

routers without any host or router in between.

⚫ Transient link: When several routers are attached in a network, they

are known as a transient link. The transient link has two different
implementations: Unrealistic topology: When all the routers are
connected to each other, it is known as an unrealistic topology.
Realistic topology: When some designated router exists in a network
then it is known as a realistic topology. Here designated router is a
router to which all the routers are connected. All the packets sent by the
routers will be passed through the designated router.
 OPEN SHORTEST PATH FIRST
(OSPF) PROTOCOL
⚫ Stub link: It is a network that is connected to the single router.
Data enters to the network through the single router and leaves
the network through the same router.

⚫ Virtual link: If the link between the two routers is broken, the
administration creates the virtual path between the routers, and
that path could be a long one als
 BORDER GATEWAY PROTOCOL
⚫ BGP is like a glue that helps connect the Internet together. It
is an inter-domain routing protocol that is used between
two autonomous systems.
⚫ BGP is a path vector protocol where granularity of information
is at an IP prefix level, served by autonomous systems.
⚫ The protocol can connect together any internetwork of
autonomous system using an arbitrary topology.
⚫ The only requirement is that each AS have at least one router that
is able to run BGP and that is router connect to at least one other
AS’s BGP router.
BORDER GATEWAY PROTOCOL
BORDER GATEWAY PROTOCOL
BORDER GATEWAY PROTOCOL
 IPv6
⚫ Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the latest revision of the
Internet Protocol (IP) and the first version of the protocol to be
widely deployed.
⚫ IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address
exhaustion.
⚫ IP v6 is 128-bits address having an address space of 2^128,
which is way bigger than IPv4.
⚫ The IPv6 protocol can handle packets more efficiently, improve
performance and increase security.
⚫ It enables internet service providers to reduce the size of their
routing tables by making them more hierarchical.
 IPv6
IPv6 Addressing
•An IPv6 address consists of 16 bytes (octets)
•Thus an IPv6 address is 128 bits long
• It uses hexadecimal colon notation.
• In this notation 128 bits is divided into eight sections. Each section is
2 bytes long.
• Two bytes in hexadecimal notation require four hexadecimal digits.
Thus, the address consists of 32 hexadecimal digits, with every four
digits separated by a colon.
IPv6
 IPv6
Abbreviation
⚫ We can also write the IP address in abbreviated form.
⚫ This can be done by omitting the leading zeros of a section (four
digits between two colons)
⚫ In such a form, only leading zero can be omitted and not the
trailing zeros.
⚫ Using this form of abbreviation, 0074 can be written as 74, 000F
as F, and 000 as 0.Note 3210 cannot be abbreviated.
⚫ Further abbreviations are also possible if there are consecutive
sections consisting of zeros only. Using this scheme, zeros can
be removed altogether and can be replaced with a double colon.
IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Addresses
 IPv6 Addresses
Anycast-
⚫ IPv6 has introduced a new type of addressing, which is called
Anycast addressing.
⚫ In this addressing mode, multiple interfaces (hosts) are assigned
same Anycast IP address.
⚫ When a host wishes to communicate with a host equipped with
an Anycast IP address, it sends a Unicast message.
⚫ With the help of complex routing mechanism, that Unicast
message is delivered to the host closest to the Sender in terms of
Routing cost.
IPv6 Addresses Space
TRANSITION FROM IPv4 to IPv6
 TRANSITION FROM IPv4 to IPv6

In a scenario where different IP versions exist on intermediate path or

transit networks, tunneling provides a better solution where user’s
data can pass through a non-supported IP version.
TRANSITION FROM IPv4 to IPv6