This is however dependent on the initial bits. The total of number of addresses in IPv4 are 4 294-967-296. As for IPv6, the address is made up of 128 bit long pieces which are 16 bytes. The fundamental structure of IPv6 is 64 bits (network number) and 64 bits (host number). In most case the host portion of a given IPv6 address or at least part of it is delivered from the device's MAC address . Address allocation

For IPv4, the address allocation was originally done using a network class. As the system's address space gets depleted, certain smaller allocation are made using Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR).These allocation are however not balanced among various nations and institutions.

Address lifetime

For IPv4 the concept of address lifetime is not applicable except for the cases of addresses that are assigned using Dynamic Host Configuration protocol (DHCP). As for the IPv6, the addresses have two definite lifetimes. The preferred and the valid lifetimes.

Address mask

For IPv4 address mask is used in order to designate network from the host portion.Address mask is not applicable for the PIv6 case.

Communications trace

As for IPv4 a tool that is used to collect a very detailed trace of the TCP/IP...

As for IPv6, the mechanism is the same.
Configuration

For IPv4 the configuration is a must while for Ipv6 it is optional.

Domain Name System (DNS)

Both IPv4 and IPv6 applications do accept host names as well as use the DNS in order to retrieve the IP addresses via a socket API referred to as gethostbyname ().

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)

Used in Ipv4 to allocate addresses while for IPv6,the implementation of the i5/OS implementation of DHCP is not supported.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

For Ipv4,it is used to transfer files across network while for Ipv6 the implementation of the i5/OS implementation of FTP is not supported.

References

Deering, S Hinden, R (1995)RFC 1883, Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification,

Deering, S Hinden, R (1998)RFC 2460, Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification.The

Internet Society

International Business Machines ( 2011). Comparison of IPv4 and IPv6

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r4/index.jsp?topic=%2Frzai2%2Frzai2compipv4ipv6.htm

RFC 760 (1980)DOD Standard Internet Protocol

McAfee (2011). The role of IP addresses http://www.mcafeeasap.com/Sc/Help/PageLevelHelp/Help/en-U.S./GUID-FD5A38F6-F43C-4955-BE5B-CF87603873AF.html