Читать книгу Understanding Infrastructure Edge Computing - Alex Marcham - Страница 50

Both IPv4 and IPv6 are examples of layer 3 protocols. They are the most commonly encountered layer 3 protocols, and as such, they provide a method for the end‐to‐end addressing of endpoints across the network using a globally unique address space. When each endpoint has a globally unique identifier, data can be addressed to a specific endpoint without ambiguity; this function allows data to be transmitted between endpoints which reside on different networks, even at a worldwide scale.

In the context of both the internet and infrastructure edge computing, both of the Internet Protocol (IP) versions, IPv4 and, to a growing extent, IPv6 are ubiquitous. Any application, endpoint, or piece of infrastructure must support these protocols; no real competitor currently exists and is unlikely to do so for some time due to the ubiquity of both IPv4 and IPv6, driving their integration into billions of devices and applications across the world. In addition, many of the issues with these protocols have been tempered by the industry using various means, so few see a pressing need to replace them.

IPv6 adoption, although behind its earlier cousin IPv4 as of today, is growing across the world and is expected to reach parity with and then exceed the amount of global internet traffic transmitted atop IPv6 compared to IPv4 as measured on a daily basis. One of the growth areas for IPv6 is expected to be the widespread deployment of city‐scale IoT, where potentially millions of devices must be able to connect with remote applications operating in other networks, requiring these devices to have a globally unique IP address. This need combined with the global exhaustion of the IPv4 address space looks set to drive the future adoption of IPv6, although IPv4 address conservation mechanisms such as network address translation (NAT) remain in use and will continue to be for many years ahead.