IPv4 addresses are 32-bit while IPv6 addresses are 128-bit. Customers can get a /64 allocation of IPv6 addresses provisioned to every one of their SoftLayer servers. A /64 block of IPv6 addresses contains 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 distinct addresses. The entire IPv4 address space is 4,294,967,296 distinct addresses.
It’s easy to get lost in a sea of numbers when you start talking about IPv4 and IPv6 address space. With the exhaustion of IPv4 address space and the big push toward IPv6, everyone’s talking about address blocks, usage justification and dual stack compatibility, but all of those conversations presuppose a certain understanding of why IP addresses are the way they are. Someone can say, “The IPv6 pool is exponentially larger than the IPv4 pool,” but that statement needs a little context when you hear that providers like SoftLayer are provisioning a free /64 IPv6 allocation of 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 addresses to a single server. If the entire IPv4 pool on the Internet is 4,294,967,296 addresses and we’re giving away that many IPv6 addresses to a single server, a simple question logically follows:
Are the Internet authorities being irresponsible when they’re allowing such huge numbers of IPv6 addresses to be assigned to individual servers without a demonstrated need for that many addresses? Will this “wastefulness” lead to another IP address pool depletion in our lifetime? These questions are completely legitimate, and they’re much easier to explain in a visualized format than they are if we answered them line-by-line in text:
The video duration might seem intimidating, especially if you consider that all 15 minutes are spent talking about IP addresses (Woohoo!), but there’s a lot of information, and we did our best to break it down to simple pieces that logically follow each other to help you get the full picture of the world of IP addresses. We explain what CIDR Slash (/) Notation (where you see IP address blocks written as “192.0.2.0/24″), and we offer a simple trick to calculate the number of distinct addresses available in a given IPv4 block. There’s a fair amount of witty (and not-witty) banter and at least one use of the word “ridonkulous,” so if you enjoyed the DC Construction video commentary, you’ll get a kick out of this one too.
Toward the end of the video, we speak directly to why SoftLayer is able to give a /64 of IPv6 addresses to every server and what that means for the future of the IPv6 space.
Fun Fact: SoftLayer IP Address Space*
- IPv4: 872,448 Addresses
- IPv6 (/32): 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336 Addresses
*Does not include IP space assigned to The Planet
Did the video help you wrap your mind around the differences between IPv4 and IPv6? Do you have any more questions about the differences between the two or how SoftLayer is approaching them?
- Lilah Brown's Planets, Part II (or, Season II preview) - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Snow White needs a bailout - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- To the moon - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- S/1 90482 (2005) needs your help - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- We'll always have Regulus - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Orcus Porcus - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Kant's Crowded Universe - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Look up! - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Baby Pictures - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Encore: Yelping at Saints - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Godspeed - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Heavens above! - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Homeward bound - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Sony Pictures and the end of the world - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Thank you from the future - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Lunar dreams - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The first of the Pluto books! - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Don't try to blame it on Rio - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Rio roundup - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The long road to a Titan storm - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Planetary Placemats - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Fog! Titan! Titan Fog! (and a peer review experiment) - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Millard Canyon Memories - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The problem with science - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- P.S. on the problem with science - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- How Big is 10 TB? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Showing You Your Servers - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Pick Your Partnership: Referral Partners, Resellers and Affiliates - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Server Form Factors: Towers v. Rack-Mounts - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Lights-Out in the Data Centers - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Disruptive Technologies: Virtualization and The Cloud - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Know Thy Backups – Part I - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Know Thy Backups – Part II - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Boo Bash 2009 – Desktop Costume Included! - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Why No One Will Talk About “Cloud Computing” in 10 Years - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The end of the fall - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- We Love ‘Server Huggers’ - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- All About the Cloud: An Interview with Dell’s Cloud Evangelist - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Happy Solstice - December 21st, 2009 [December 21st, 2009]
- A ghost of Christmas past - December 31st, 2009 [December 31st, 2009]
- Learning from a Blender - January 5th, 2010 [January 5th, 2010]
- Changing my world - January 6th, 2010 [January 6th, 2010]
- A Server. From Scratch. - January 7th, 2010 [January 7th, 2010]
- The Planet Sand Castle: Upgrade Your Sandbox - January 12th, 2010 [January 12th, 2010]
- Hosting for Haiti - January 20th, 2010 [January 20th, 2010]
- Redefining Value - January 26th, 2010 [January 26th, 2010]
- My Experience as a Newbie at The Planet - January 28th, 2010 [January 28th, 2010]
- Confessions of Another New Planeteer - February 1st, 2010 [February 1st, 2010]
- How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Permissions - February 11th, 2010 [February 11th, 2010]
- Where at The Planet is Rachel? - February 15th, 2010 [February 15th, 2010]
- The Planet Storage Cloud: FYI - February 19th, 2010 [February 19th, 2010]
- Meet us in March - February 25th, 2010 [February 25th, 2010]
- The Planet in “The Channel” - March 2nd, 2010 [March 2nd, 2010]
- The Planet Server Challenge - March 13th, 2010 [March 13th, 2010]
- The Definitive Guide to Finding The Planet at SXSW - March 13th, 2010 [March 13th, 2010]
- The SXSW Iron Geek Champion! - March 15th, 2010 [March 15th, 2010]
- Drinking from the Fire Hose - March 16th, 2010 [March 16th, 2010]
- The Fastest Hands at SXSW - March 17th, 2010 [March 17th, 2010]
- System.out.println(“Hello World!”); - March 22nd, 2010 [March 22nd, 2010]
- Westmere – Get it Here - March 23rd, 2010 [March 23rd, 2010]
- Orbit on Your iPhone: A Sign of Things to Come - March 24th, 2010 [March 24th, 2010]
- #ShowMeMyServer 2.0 - March 25th, 2010 [March 25th, 2010]
- Get to Know Your Visitors - March 30th, 2010 [March 30th, 2010]
- The Next Big Thing in Hosting: The Hostatulator - April 1st, 2010 [April 1st, 2010]
- Storage Cloud and the City - April 4th, 2010 [April 4th, 2010]
- American Heart – Why I Walk - April 7th, 2010 [April 7th, 2010]
- The Cake Shouldn’t Be a Lie - April 8th, 2010 [April 8th, 2010]
- April Showers Bring May Flowers - April 9th, 2010 [April 9th, 2010]
- First at The Planet: Nehalem EX 4-Socket Servers - April 15th, 2010 [April 15th, 2010]
- Intel Guest Blog: Xeon 5600 - April 16th, 2010 [April 16th, 2010]
- Inside the Office: A Birthday Surprise - April 18th, 2010 [April 18th, 2010]
- The Planet @ Cloud Expo East - April 19th, 2010 [April 19th, 2010]
- The Planet @ ad:tech SF - April 22nd, 2010 [April 22nd, 2010]
- ad:tech Server Challenge - April 22nd, 2010 [April 22nd, 2010]
- ad:tech Panel: Developing Communities Online - April 23rd, 2010 [April 23rd, 2010]
- The Planet @ Interop Las Vegas - April 27th, 2010 [April 27th, 2010]
- Overflowing With Value: 10TB is Back! - April 28th, 2010 [April 28th, 2010]
- The Cloud is NOT the Revolution - April 29th, 2010 [April 29th, 2010]
- The Importance of Orbit 2.0 - May 5th, 2010 [May 5th, 2010]
- The Planet @ Web 2.0 Expo - May 6th, 2010 [May 6th, 2010]