‫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 packet or data grams, 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 connection less, 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 co-exist within the global Internet.
‫IP version four or IPV four and IP versions 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 IPv4, 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, well, let's see,
‫why don't you just do the math on your own?
‫So IPv4 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 IPv4.
‫So because a hexadecimal number uses four bit, 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.