EVALUATING INTERNET PROTOCOL VERSION 6 (IPv6) AGAINST VERSION 4 (IPv4)

Abstract

This paper evaluates the performance of IPv6 against IPv4. IPv4 has address space shortages. The use of Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) and Network Address Translation (NAT) helped to address these shortages. However, Featuresbuilt into IPv6 such as autoconfiguration, IPSec, Mobility, Multiple addresses for hosts and networks, Multicastcommunication make it well worth the cost, time and effort required to migrate to it. Performance metrics used in order toanalyze the protocols are network delay, network drop, and throughput. Results showed that IPv6 is not better in terms ofpacket management than IPv4. The results also showed that IPv6 has higher delay, and packet drop than IPv4; though themargin between the values are however small. It was also found that IPv6 has a higher throughput. It is hereby concluded,that even though IPv4 is performing better, it will not solve the address limitation problem. This has made it inevitable torecommend IPv6 as a replacement for the IPv4.Keywords: Latency, Throughput, PacketDrop, NAT, Mobility, Autoconfiguration.