Probably the most well known network layer protocol is, of course, IP or Internet protocol.
As I mentioned in the beginning of the course.
The Internet protocol or IP is responsible for addressing hosts.
Encapsulating data into packets or datagrams, including fragmentation and reassembly.
And routing packets from a source host to a destination host across one or more IP networks.
So like other layer three protocols, IP is connectionless, which means it doesn't care whether the
packet has reached the destination or not.
That's what Layer four is for.
All right.
So there are two versions of IP that currently coexist within the global Internet IP version four or
IPV four and IP version six or IPV six.
IP addresses are made up of binary values and drive the routing of all data over the internet.
IPV four addresses are 32 bits long and IPV six addresses are 128 bits long.
Right now.
We're going to see each of the versions in detail.
But before we move on, let's compare the main features of each version.
IPV four is a 32 bit address and IPV six is a 128 bit address.
Now theoretically you can address two to the power of 32 devices in IPV four, which is about 4.3 billion.
Right.
In IPV six.
On the other hand, you can address two to the power of 128 devices, which is, well, um, well,
let's see.
Why don't you just do the math on your own?
So IPV four is represented by the decimal equivalent of four octets separated by dots.
The biggest number one can make with eight binary digits is two to the power of eight minus one, which
means 255.
So each octet can be any number from 0 to 2.
Five five.
Right.
Now 128 bit IPV six addresses are written using hexadecimal as opposed to dotted decimal in IPV four.
So because a hexadecimal number uses four bits, this means that an IPV six address consists of 32 hexadecimal
numbers.
These numbers are grouped in fours, giving eight groups or blocks.
The groups are written with a colon as a separator.