IPv6 is the highly awaited upgrade of the present internet protocol IPv4. Compared to the 32 bit addressing scheme of IPv4, IPv6 addresses a much larger 128 bits. This means that the IPv6 contains an estimated 3 x 10^38 addresses, hence an exhaustion of IP addresses will not occur in the near future.

IPv6 addresses are represented by 32 hexadecimal digits separated into 8 groups of 4 digits each.
The address range of the IPv6 starts 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 and ends at ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff.

It was in the mid 1980’s that concerns over the sustainability of IP addresses were first brought to notice by internet based engineers. It wasn't till 1998 though, that a feasible solution was thought up. With the growing concern of the inevitable exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) came up with the IPv6, the perfect replacement for IPv4 Internet protocol.

Even with the rising concerns, there was still no real necessity for the IPv6, as there were more than enough IPv4 addresses at the time. This led to a very slow transition movement. It wasn't till a decade later, that the first mass display of the IPv6 capabilities came into the picture. That display was none other than the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

Since that time, several major companies have switched over to implementing IPv6 in their technologies. Some of these companies include Google, Verizion and Comcast.

As of 2010, IPv6 has taken over 1% of the internet traffic, but with nearly 92% of IPv4 addresses exhausted at that point of time, there is bound to be a rise in IPv6’s presence over the internet traffic.