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Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering, Vol. 5, No. 1, January-June 2011, pp. 27-29
© Global Research Publications–ISSN:0974-4320
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF IPV4, IPV6 AND
ZIGBEE PROTOCOLS
M. REHENA SULTHANA* AND N. RAMA**
Abstract: Sensor networks have become increasingly important in various areas and most current applications require connectivity
between sensor networks and internet. Internet usage is increasing rapidly. In such scenario, communication of two nodes is possible
only if they find each other. Various addressing protocols have been developed to obtain this. IPV4 is the internet protocol with version
4. It has limited address, this limited address does not meet the growth of the internet. IPV6 has many enhancements compared to
IPV4. It was developed with security in mind. Enhancements of IPV6 over IPV4 include extended address space, aggregative routes,
automatic configuration, improved security, enhanced mobility and support for quality of service. The Zigbee protocol is designed to
communicate data through hostile RF environments that are common in commercial and industrial applications.
Keywords: IPV6, IPV4, Zigbee, 6LoWPAN.
1. INTRODUCTION
2. IPV4 AND IPV6 COMPARISON
Recently internet has become a common language in daily
lives. The number of hosts grows exponentially. Second the
bandwidth requirements increasing very rapidly. Another
serious problem is that the number of IP address is going to
run out. To provide more IP address, IPV6 is proposed. It
expands the length of IP address from 32 bit (IPv4) to 128
bits[3]. Since the exhaustion of IPV4 address in the
immediate future, IPV6 will be introduced and coexist with
IPV4 for a long time. The Internet Engineering Task force
(IETF) has been working on the IPV6 specifications in order
to address the limitations caused by IPV4. IPV6 is also
referred as Next Generation Internet Protocol (IPng). ZigBee
is a low-cost, low-power, wireless mesh networking
standard. First, the low cost allows the technology to be
widely deployed in wireless control and monitoring
applications. Second, the low power-usage allows longer
life with smaller batteries. Third, the mesh networking
provides high reliability and more extensive range. ZigBee
protocols are intended for use in embedded applications
requiring low data rates and low power consumption that
can be used for industrial control, embedded sensing,
medical data collection [2]. The resulting network will use
very small amounts of power — individual devices must
have a battery life of at least two years to pass ZigBee
certification. The IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee protocol stack has
been considered as a promising technology for Wireless
Sensor Networks (WSN)[6].Wireless sensor network
provide the low rate, wireless interconnection of ultra low
cost sensor/actuator devices to enable the cyber world to
sense and affect the real physical environment.
IPV4 allows for 32 bit IP address space whereas IPV6 allows
for 128 bit IP address with the increased IP address size up
to 3.4x1038 different IP addresses can be defined. In IPV4
it has four octets separated by decimals. Each octet
represents 8 bits. The first octet represents the network
address and last three octets represent the host address. Each
octet can take any number from from 0 to 255. The unique
possible combinations of IPV4 address to 232. In Ipv4 an IP
address is divided into the network id and the host id [2].It
has four classes.
Class A: 0.0.0.0 to 127.255.255.255
Class B: 128.0.0.0 to 191.255.255.255
Class C: 192.0.0.0 to 223.255.255.255
Class D: 224.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255
Class A type is used for large size networks. Class B
type is used for medium sized networks. Class C is used for
relatively small networks and Class D is used for multicast
networks.
IPV6 uses hexadecimal system and each address is
assigned a space of 16 bytes (compared to 4 bytes in
IPV4).This increases the IP address number possibilities to
2128 which is vast enough to accommodate the need of all
networks in the future.
IPV6 routers are not allowed to fragment packets they
forward. Only the original sender of the IPV6 packet is
permitted to break the packet into fragments. This has
significant implications for network security because ICMP
packets must be permitted through all IPV6 networks. The
time to live field is replaced by the hop limit field. The option
field is no longer part of the header as it was in IPV4.The
options are specified in the optional IPV6 extension headers.
The removal of the options field from the header provides
*
Research Scholar, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore-641046.
**
Associate Professor, Presidency College, Chennai.
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Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering
for more efficient routing. For better support of real time
traffic, IPV6 includes “labeled flows in its specification”
with this routers can recognize the end-to-end flow to which
transmitted packets belong to.
IPV4 is limited to stateful protocols such as dynamic
host configuration protocol, which require a server to store
a requesting host’s configuration information [6].
IPV6 introduces a simplified stateless auto
configuration procedure where a node can configure its IP
address based only on local information that is without
contacting a server.
Ipv6 provides enhance mobility support that allow
mobile nodes to change their locations and addresses without
losing the existing connections through which those nodes
are communicating.
IPSec from (IETF) provides network layer encryption
and authentication for IP based networks [6]. In IPV4,
widely used (NAT), but IPV6 expands address space and
makes NAT unnecessary.IPV6 is extended to increas6e the
use of IPSec in end-to-end communication using
authentication header and encapsulating security payload
extension header.
Figure 1: ZigBee Network Model
3. ZIGBEE STANDARD
The Zigbee is suited for the family of LoW-Rate Wireless
Personal Area Networks (LR-WPANs), allowing network
creation, management, and data transmission over a wireless
channel with high energy savings. It uses three types of
devices coordinator, router and end device. The router is
used to relay packets towards the correct destination in the
absence of the direct communication link. The coordinator,
in addition to relaying the packets, can also create the
network, exchange the parameters used by the other nodes
to communicate and send network management commands.
The router and the coordinator are referred to as Full
Function Devices (FFDs).
The end devices, referred to as Reduced Function
Devices (RFDs), can only collect data values from sensors,
insert these values into proper packets, and send them to
their destinations [5].
The Zigbee standard is based, at the first two layers of
the OSI stack, on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard.Zigbee
supports star, cluster and mesh topologies.
ZigBee makes possible completely networked homes
where all devices are able to communicate and be controlled
by a single unit.
Zigbee formalizes and designs a higher level
architecture and communication protocol based on the IEEE
802.15.4 PHY/MAC layers as one of the top standard for
reliable and mutual connection between small sized devices
of very low cost and low power consumption. Zigbee
focuses on home and building automation, medical sensor
applications and so on. Zigbee enables to form large scale
sensor networks by connecting zigbee transceivers to various
sensors (action, light, pressure, temperature and humidity)[1].
Figure 2: IEEE 802.15.4 / ZigBee Stack Architecture
4. 6LOWPAN(LOW POWER WIRELESS
PERSONAL AREA NETWORKS)
Due to the rapid development of new paradigm applications,
wireless networks are morphing into IEEE 802.15.4–the
standard for LoWPAN which are playing an essential role
in the current scenario. The IPV6 –WSN network is used
for transmission of IPV6 packets[3]. It is based on
combination of IEEE 802.15.4 and IPV6.The IPV6 –WSN
is based on a 6 LoWPAN stack specified into the RFC’s
and drafts of IETF working group.
The IPV6- WSN are inexpensive, low performance,
wireless communication networks and are formed by devices
complying with IEEE 802.15.4 standard.
6 LoWPAN has defined header compression and
encapsulation mechanisms that allows IPV6 packets to be
sent to and received from over IEEE 802.15.4 based
networks.IEEE 802.15.4 devices provides sensing
communication ability in the wireless domain .The target
for IP networking for low power radio communication are
applications that need wireless internet connection at low
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Performance Analysis of IPV4, IPV6 and Zigbee Protocols
data rates. Examples include automations, entertainment
applications in home, office and factory.
5. CONCLUSION
In this paper I have analyzed the concepts of IPV4,
IPV6 and Zigbee protocols .Also I investigated on 6
LoWPAN technology, where my future research work of
associating IPV6 packets on 6 LoWPAN will be
implemented.
wireless personal area network, Hyoung Jun kim, won jay song,
sang ha Kim.
[2] A fast and scalable IPV4 and 6 address lookup algorithm, Seiven
leu, Ruay-shiung chang.
[3] Performance analysis of gateway discovery techniques: IPV6
based wireless sensor networks, Dhanjay singh and daeyeoul
Kim.
[4] An object oriented model of IPV4/IPV6 network management,
ZHA qin, MA yan.
[5] www.zigbee.org
REFERENCES
[1] Light-weighted internet protocol version6 for Low power
[6] IPV4/IPV6 security and threat comparisons, Emre Durdagi, Ali
buldu.