Understanding IPv6

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the first major revamping of IP since RFC 791 was accepted in 1981. Yes, the operation of IP has improved, and there have been a few bells and whistles added (such as NAT, for example), but the basic structure is still being used as it was originally intended. IPv6 has actually been available to use in Microsoft operating systems since NT 4.0, but it always had to be manually enabled. Microsoft Vista was the first Microsoft operating system to have it enabled by default. It is also enabled by default in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 (and probably will be in all Microsoft operating systems from this point on).

TCP and UDP—as well as the IP applications such as HTTP, FTP, SNMP, and the rest—are still being used in IPv4. So, you might ask, why change to the new version? What does IPv6 bring to your networking infrastructure? What is the structure of an IPv6 address? How is it implemented and used within Windows Server 2008 R2? We’ll answer all those questions and more in the following sections.