So I completed today's assignment and learned some interesting things regarding IPv4 versus IPv6, again who knows what happened to Ipv5, perhaps it was in the works but they skipped it and decided to straight to 6.
Thanks to IPv6, millions, wait wait, trillions, more computers and handheld devices will have access to the internet. You have to have an IP address to get a connection and they are running out of the 32-bit IP addresses that IPv4 uses. IPv6 uses a 128-bit IP address, which makes it a much longer address, but there will be so many more available that they won't have to upgrade that part of it again for several years. I'm thinking that IPv5, if there was going to ever be one, would have been 64-bit, since that is the normal in-between number of 32 and 128 when it comes to computers.
I'm not sure how much sense this makes to anyone. You'll still be able to use url's to get where you need to go, unless for some reason you need to use an IP address itself, such as at work. Offices that do use such a system will have to upgrade and make sure that their employees keep their IP address written down so they don't have to memorize it.
I have a feeling this is going to effect inter-office communications as well. The UberMachine we had (copier, scanner, printer, fax, could also email and scan) was accessed by an IP address through the server. Everyone was able to print from either office because their computer knew the IP address to the machine and it had to be a static number. We had several issues where the provider kept taking us off static and the IP number kept changing. Obviously that meant no one in either office could print until it was resolved and they hated returning our phone calls!
So I can imagine what's going to happen when someone in that office can't print and there isn't anyone in the office that can fix it or has the authority to call the provider and have them walkthrough the correction. Since I no longer work there, I find that this would give me gigglefits. Hell, even if I did work there, I'd still laugh my ass off because I always had my own non-network printer!
Ahhh the love of technology upgrades. When they are this big, this global, there's no way you can't avoid them. It's a good thing for the most part though. I can't wait to see what happens.
