subject: Ipv4: Fourth Generation Of Internet Protocol! [print this page] IPv4 is a contraction of Internet Protocol Version Four and is also identified as RFC 719. It was the fourth creation of Internet Protocol and was also the primary version to be extensively deployed and it is at the middle of standards-based internetworking system of the internet and is still the most expansively set up Internet Layer protocol. IPv4 is a connectionless protocol which is based on the use on packet-switched Link Layer networks like Ethernet.
The network layer is the former layer in the OSI which is software based and the third layer of the OSI model deals with discovery, direction-finding and switching for back-to-back communications that are not straightforwardly linked to each other using one material link e.g. an Ethernet line. The Internet Protocol is the most overriding protocol on the Internet today and frequently runs on upper layer protocols such as the Transmission Control Protocol and the User Datagram Protocol.
Every computer or machine associated to the Internet must have an exceptional IP address in order to converse with other systems on the Internet. Because the quantity of systems attached to the Internet is rapidly approaching the number of accessible IP addresses, IPv4 addresses are predicted to expire soon. When one considers that there are over 6 billion people on the earth and many people have in excess of one system connected to the Internet, it is not surprising those 4.3 billion addresses are not enough.
To resolve this problem, an innovative 128-bit IP system, called IPv6, has been developed and is in the course of replacing the existing IPv4 system. During this intermediary process from IPv4 to IPv6, systems linked to the Internet may be assigned both an IPv4 and IPv6 address.
IPv4 address consists of 32 bits, 4 bytes that are an arrangement between zeros and ones and the address consists of two parts, the network part and the host address part. Depending on which class the IP address belongs, the amount of network and host bytes differ.
