IP Addressing Fundamentals

Address Types

Getting beyond the dramatic change in the size of the IPv6 address space, you can't help but be struck by the equally dramatic change in how address space is used. Rather than arbitrary allocations between block sizes, the IETF sought to carve the new address space into functional categories, each of which would enable more-efficient routing through a more-sophisticated hierarchy. These functional categories are known as anycast, unicast, and multicast. Noticeably absent was the broadcast address type. IPv6 doesn't use broadcast addresses, but it satisfies that function through the multicast address type.

Throughout this book, we've looked at how IPv4's addressing system works. Implicit was that there were two types of addresses: ...