What is IP addressing

        Abbreviation of Internet Protocol is IP.

       An IP address is an identifier for a device ( a computer, a printer ... etc) on a TCP/IP network. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is the protocol used in the internet. Protocol is a  standard set of regulations and requirements which allows two electronic devices to communicate with each other.The TCP/IP  interconnects the network devices on the internet.

       Nowadays two internet protocols are used.

• Internet protocol version 4 [ IPv4 ]
• Internet protocol version 6 [ IPv6 ]         

      IPv4

        This is the currently using protocol for communication. IPv4 uses 32 bit addresses.So that we can have about 4.3 billion unique addresses.

Ex:
      128.92.32.9
      128.96.10.148

       Normally IP addresses are displayed in human readable notation; in decimal format.But IP addresses are binary numbers. As you can see in the example, each octet(8 bits) is separated by a dot. The value of each octet is used to represent the IP address in decimal format as follows.

= 128.92.32.9

   = 128.96.10.148
   

     IPv6

        It is used 128 bit address for IPv6 addressing. So, logically we can have 2¹²⁸, different addresses or approximately  3.4×10³⁸ addresses by using IPv6. It is very large number when comparing with IPv4 address space (more than 7.9×10²⁸ times).