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This document presents an overview of the Next Generation Internet Protocol (IPng) or IPv6. IPv6 was recommended by the IPng Area Directors of the Internet Engineering Task Force at the Toronto IETF meeting on July 25, 1994, and documented in RFC 1752, The Recommendation for the IP Next Generation Protocol. The recommendation was approved by the Internet Engineering Steering Group on November 17, 1994 and made a Proposed Standard.

The formal name of this protocol is IPv6 (where the "6" refers to it being assigned version number 6). The current version of the Internet Protocol is version 4 (referred to as IPv4).
IPv6 is a new version of the Internet Protocol which is designed to be an evolutionary step from IPv4. It is a natural increment to IPv4 that can be installed as a normal software upgrade in internet devices and is interoperable with the current IPv4. Its deployment strategy was designed to not have any "flag" days, in which the old protocol is turned off and the new protocol is turned on. IPv6 is designed to run well on high performance networks (e.g., ATM) and at the same time is still efficient for low bandwidth networks (e.g., wireless). In addition, it provides a platform for new internet functionality that will be required in the near future.
There are several key issues that should be considered when reviewing the design of the next generation internet protocol. Some are very straightforward. For example the new protocol must be able to support large global internetworks. Others are less obvious. There must be a clear way to transition the current large installed base of IPv4 systems.
Growth is the basic issue which caused there to be a need for a next generation IP. If anything is to be learned from our experience with IPv4 it is that the addressing and routing must be capable of handling reasonable scenarios of future growth. It is important that we have an understanding of the past growth and where the future growth will come from.
IPv6 was designed to take an evolutionary step from IPv4. It was not a design goal to take a radical step away from IPv4. Functions which work in IPv4 were kept in IPv6. Functions which didn't work were removed. The changes from IPv4 to IPv6 fall primarily into the following categories:
Expanded Routing and Addressing Capabilities
The scalability of multicast routing is improved by adding a "scope" field to multicast addresses.
Header Format Simplification
Improved Support for Options
Quality-of-Service

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