Both IPv6 address (eg. 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334) and UUID (eg. 123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000) are 128-bit numbers.
Could the Internet Engineering Task Force (who created IPv6) design IPv6 to use UUID as this protocols address scheme? Why didn't they? After all, the wiki says:
UUIDs are, for practical purposes, unique.
1 Answer
UUIDs are, for practical purposes, unique.
UUIDs are not foolproof and there can be collisions. It makes no sense to use a format that can have collisions, as you would be setting yourself up for failure. The set of IP addresses in IPv6 are all unique, with no chance of collision.
Also, UUIDs are generated using a hash. Essentially, they are randomly generated at the end user's machine. There is no way to know what that UUID will be. This means blocks of contiguous IPs cannot be allocated.
