Inception Of The Internet

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract

One of the biggest achievements of our times in data network is the internet. It has resulted in an explosion of user generated content and involvement from awide spectrum of demographics. This information has, since the inception of the Internet, beencarried on the back of TCP/IPv4 but this era is now coming to a close. With the sun setting on theheight of the TCP/IPv4 reign, the need for a successor grows. There is resistance to change inthose who control the infrastructure of the Internet. The battle of the protocols rages on.

Inception Of the internet

The greatest telecommunicational breakthrough since the telephone are the internet and World Wide Web. The human race has created ever more sophisticated ways of communicating and sharing information with each other. Let see as to how it came about. Thousands of years ago in the past smoke signals and drums were the first forms of communication. Scientists and academic professionals in the early 1960s began to develop standards which would enable different computer networks to communicate with each other. By the mid-1990s the internet had spread wide over the globe and research also states that in 2012 around 3 billion people access and use the internet.

The standards that the scientist developed at the early stages are known as protocols. Protocols establish a clear and cut method for the basis of the information that is basis transmitted. The TCP/IP began in 1974. Two computer networks can communicated directly and do not need any translation if they are using the same protocol. The internet protocol suite is the main protocol used by the internet which is then broken down into two components, the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol, so putting them together the internet protocol suite is known as TCP/IP.

Long ago a designator was produced which would have a completely unique code by which each device that is connected to the internet can be identified, this is known as the IP address, by using this each computer can identify where to send and receive information

The reason for the success of the TCP/IP is due to its advantages over other network protocols and suites

It is not a private protocol that any company can own, it’s a free source.

It is a routable protocol, which means as it moves through the network it will choose the best path for every packet thus the TCP/IP is highly scalable making the size of the network unlimited. Eg : Internet

Reliable data delivery, which means that it can provide you with guarantee that the information has been sent to its destination properly.

The use of a simple and single addressing scheme(IP addressing) allows administrators to share their knowledge of TCP/IP to any other network without the need of learning a new addressing scheme.

Open standards and Development process , that is the TCP/IP protocols are developed in front of an audience, it is developed using a RFC process, giving a chance to all the people who are interested in TCP/IP protocols to share their ideas, and it is also ensure that the protocol suite is accepted worldwide.

TCP/IP Protocol Layers

TCP/IP provides its service through layers. This is known as the protocol stack. These layers are used for positioning. Each layer is given a specific function and is therefore transparent to the layer above or below it.Transport protocols such as TCP make use of this service to provide applications with reliable, in-order, data stream delivery. This model consists of 5 layers.

Application Layer

This layer consists of the standard application networks and internet services that can be accessed by anyone. Some of the protocols is contains are standards TCP/IUP services and NFS services.

Transport Layer

This protocol ensure that the data segments arrive in sequence without any interruption across the internet layer. This is called the end to end (host to host) connection. It send data to the internet layer while sending and to the application layer while receiving.

Internet Layer

Also known as the network layer. This enables communication cross one or more networks. Packets for the networks are accepted and delivered from this layer. Two most powerful protocols are included in this The Powerful Internet Protocol and the Address Resolution Protocol.

Network Interface Layer

This enables access to the physical layer. This allows the computer to access the wireless or fiber optic network infrastructure and send information to other computers.

Physical Layer

Specifies which hardware has to be used. Specifies the physical features of the communication media. Responsible for encoding and signaling functions that change the data from bits. Data transmission and reception is done from here, this applies to wired and wireless networks. It is known as the domain of hardware related network design issues.

Evolution of TCP/IP (TCP/IPv4)

The first version of the internet protocol to be deployed worldwide was the version 4. It was deployed in the year 1981.

It is used to identify devices through an addressing system, on a network. This internet protocol is designed for the use of packet switched computer networks in interconnected systems. It is the most widely deployed protocol used to connect devices to the internet. It accounts for most for today’s internet traffic. IPv4 uses a 32 bit address scheme allowing 2 to the power of 32 addresses in total (approximately 4,294,967,296 addresses).A 32-bit numeric address (IPv4) is written in decimal as four numbers separated by periods.

IPv4 is a technology which allows us easy access to connect our devices to the internet. A device when connected to the intern may it be a phone or laptop or pc it is assigned a unique IP address such as 192.168.45.11. If some information has to be transferred from one network to another a packet of data has to be transferred with the help of the IP addresses of the two machines or devices. It is important for the web because without the IP address the two devices are not able to send and receive data from each other.

But as time went on it was realized that a lot of IP address were not available so this version will not last forever IPv4 has reached a maximum of almost 4 billion IP addresses in 2012. Going on and on the internet was exceed this number as every computer, cell and also a PlayStation need an IP address. All the devices require internet therefore IP addresses will run out soon.

However there are certain limitations which come along with IPv4

Scarcity of IPv4 addresses

This version uses a 32 bit address space which is further classifies to A,B and C classes.32 bit address allows space only for around 4 billion IPv4 addresses but the previous and current IPv4 address allocation practices limit the number of available public IPv4 addresses. Most of the addresses which were allocated to many firms were not used thus causing scarcity of IPv4 addresses.

Security related issues

Since IPv4 was deployed in 1981, people were not aware of the current network security threats. IPsec (internet protocol security) is a protocol which provides security for the network by protecting information from being sent or received. It provides security for IPv4 packets but is not built in.

Address configuration relates issues

The configuration of IP addresses should be simple because the internet is expanding and any new computers are using IP.

Need for better support for real-time delivery of data, also called quality of service

Real-time traffic support relies on the IPv4 Type of Service (TOS) field and the identification of the payload, typically using a UDP or TCP port. Unfortunately, the IPv4 TOS field has limited functionality and over time there were various local interpretations. In addition, payload identification using a TCP and UDP port is not possible when the IPv4 packet payload is encrypted.

The granularity of IP address allocation is too gross. In IP you have only four classes of nets: Class A, B, C and D (a fifth class, class E, is only for research purposes). These classes differ in the number of nets and hosts:

Class A

125 nets - about 16 mill. Hosts per net

Class B

16382 nets - 65534 hosts per net

Class C

About 2 mill. Nets - 254 hosts per net

Class D

Multicast network class

To overcome these problems and limitations the Internet engineering task force has deployed new standards known as the IPv6 (version 6). Many new ideas which were suggested to improve the IPv4 protocol is in cooperated in this version. It covers the crisis which was faces by IPv4 and it avoids addition of latest features.

Birth of TCP/IPv6

In 1991 when it was realized that IPv4 had outlived its design, the IPv6 was the result of a long process which came to an end in 1994. It was designed to overcome the problems of IPv4, it serves the same properties but without the limitations which we come across in IPv4. It is a network layer protocol that enables data communications over a packet switched network. Its working standard was published by the Internet Engineering Task Force in 1998. IPv4 which was considered as the backbone of the internet was now to be replaces with a better and advanced version the Internet protocol version 6. The first two places which were acknowledged as having the first public deployments are Japan and Korea.

A need for addition blocks of IP addresses arose when there was a gradual increase in the growth of mobile devices including mobile phone, wireless devices and computers. IP supports around 4 billion unique IP addresses.IPv6 supports a theoretical maximum 2128addresses (340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456). Both IPv4 and IPv6 have a similar architecture.The majority of transport layer protocols that function with IPv4 will also function with the IPv6 protocol.Most application layer protocols are expected to be interoperable with IPv6 as well, with the notable exception of File Transfer Protocol (FTP). FTP uses embedded network layer addresses to facilitate data transmission. An IPv6 address consists of eight groups of four hexadecimal digits. If a group consists of four zeros, the notation can be shortened using a colon to replace the zeros.

IPv6 has an increased address space that is the main advantage of IPv6. IPv4 has a length of 32 bit addresses whereas IPv6 has a length of 128 bit addresses, which therefore allows it to have an unlimited number of unique IP addresses. The address space makes it less vulnerable to malicious attacks such as IP scanning.

The key enhancement over IPv4 is native support for mobile devices.Pv6 supports the Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) protocol which enables mobile devices to switch between networks and receive a roaming notification regardless of physical location. MIPv6 is a hallmark of the protocol and was specified as a firm requirement during the design of IPv6. An IPv6 router has the ability to determine its own IPv6 address using data link layer addressing parameters

Resulting Impact

Like any new technology, IPv6 will be marked as a fine turning, during this time it’s most likely that web application performance will be impacted.

Benefits and Features of IPv6

Easier management of networks- Auto configuration capabilities are provided. Larger installations become more easy and manageable.

End to end connective integrity- The address pace is very large making direct addressing possible.

Efficient and hierarchical addressing and routing infrastructure-IPv6 global addresses used on the IPv6 portion of the Internet are designed to create an efficient, hierarchical, and summarisable routing infrastructure that addresses the common occurrence of multiple levels of Internet service providers.

Built in security- One IPv6 protocol suit environment is the support for IP sec. This requirement provides a standards-based solution for network security needs and promotes interoperability between different IPv6 implementations.

New header format-Anew format has been designed so that the overhead is kept to a minimum.both non-essential fields and optional fields are moved to extension headers that are placed after the IPv6 header. The streamlined IPv6 header is more efficiently processed at intermediate routers.

IPv4 headers and IPv6 headers are not interoperable. IPv6 is not a superset of functionality that is backward compatible with IPv4. A host or router must use an implementation of both IPv4 and IPv6 in order to recognize and process both header formats. The new IPv6 header is only twice as large as the IPv4 header, even though IPv6 addresses are four times as large as IPv4 addresses.

New protocol for neighboring node interaction

The Neighbor Discovery protocol for IPv6 is a series of Internet Control Message Protocol for IPv6 (ICMPv6) messages that manage the interaction of neighboring nodes (nodes on the same link). \ broadcast-based Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is replaced by the neighbor discovery, ICMPv4 Router Discovery, and ICMPv4 Redirect messages with efficient multicast and unicast Neighbor Discovery messages.

Extensibility

By adding extension headers after the IPv6 header IOv6 can be extended for new features. Unlike options in the IPv4 header, which can only support 40 bytes of options, the size of IPv6 extension headers is only constrained by the size of the IPv6 packet.

Due to many reasons IPv4 was replaced by IPv6. After the world IPv6 day it was clear that IPv6 was fully ready to fulfil its purpose

. The IPv6 protocol for the Microsoft® Windows Server 2003 family includes the following features:

6to4 tunneling 

Intrasite Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol 

Temporary addresses 

Site prefixes in router advertisements 

DNS support 

IPSec support 

Application support 

RPC support 

Static router support 

Command-line tool support 

6over4 tunneling 

Conclusion

The change is gradually showing a change. The most frequent to question be asked was will IPv6 have limiting factors like IPv4, and if it does what will happen if there more electronic devices in future which will need more unique IP addresses.