Internet Protocol Version 4 (ipv4) Every machine on the Internet has a unique identifying number, called IP address.

A typical ipv4 address looks like 216.27.61.137. ipv4 addresses are 32 bits long, written in decimal, and separated by periods. The maximum number of ipv4 addresses is 232.

Address Allocation The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), part of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has authority over the ipv4 address space. IANA distributes address space to five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). These RIRs allocate address space to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who would assign it to their customers.

Ipv4 Address Exhaustion The decreasing availability of publicly available ipv4 addresses is referred to as ipv4 address Exhaustion. As of September 2007, about four-fifths of the ipv4 addresses have been allocated and it is expected that by 2010 all the unallocated addresses will be fully depleted.

Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) IPv6 is the next generation protocol designed to replace the current version Internet Protocol, IP Version 4. IPv6 is intended to be the long-term solution to the ipv4 address shortage. IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long, written is hexadecimal, and separated by colons. A typical IPv6 address looks like 3ffe:0501:0008:0000:0260:97ff:fe40:efab. The maximum number of IPv6 addresses is 2128