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From 1983 to Today: How IPv4 continues to lead global network traffic?
Since 1983, IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4), as the first transmission protocol of the Internet, has gone through decades of process, and even in today's digital era, it still overwhelmingly dominates global network traffic. Many experts and industry insiders believe that the success of IPv4 is not only due to its technical characteristics, but also closely related to its design flexibility and wide application.
IPv4 uses a 32-bit address space, providing 4,294,967,296 unique addresses, although many addresses are reserved for specific uses.
Historical background of IPv4
IPv4 was first put into production on SATNET in 1982, and then on ARPANET in 1983. It was designed to solve the challenges faced by earlier versions of TCP/IP. As an independent protocol, IPv4 has pushed the development of the Internet to a new level. The U.S. Department of Defense selected TCP/IP as the standard for all military computer networks, accelerating its global adoption.
Basic structure and operation of IPv4
IPv4 can effectively route data packets on the Internet. It implements routing functions through a logical address system, forwarding data packets from the source host to the next router closer to the destination. Due to its characteristics, IPv4 is defined as a connectionless protocol and is based on a "best efforts" delivery model.
This means that IPv4 does not guarantee the delivery of packets, nor does it guarantee the order or avoid duplicate delivery. These problems are usually solved by upper layer transport protocols (such as TCP).
Address allocation and dedicated addresses
There are several special usage addresses in IPv4 address allocation. About 180,000 addresses are reserved for private network use, and about 268 million addresses are used as multicast addresses. These specific address areas ensure the efficient operation of the Internet and address security and privacy issues within the public network.
Challenges and future of IPv4
With the surge in the number of network users, the IPv4 address space is gradually approaching exhaustion. In the mid-1990s, IPv4 successfully introduced technologies such as Class-Independent Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) and Network Address Translation (NAT) to deal with this problem. However, the launch of IPv6 aims to provide a larger address space to solve the fundamental flaws of IPv4 and improve the scalability of the Internet.
However, IPv4 has still not been completely phased out and has become the basis for many existing systems and operates in conjunction with IPv6, making the transformation process challenging.
Conclusion: Why does IPv4 still dominate?
Although technology continues to advance and IPv6 gradually becomes more popular, IPv4 still occupies an indispensable position in the global Internet, and this may continue for many years. To understand this phenomenon, we need to think: In a digital world that continues to evolve, will IPv4 find a new place to live, or will it eventually be replaced by new technologies?
