[arin-ppml] The non-deployment of IPv6 - The Economic Factor

[Knight, Brian]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net 
> [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of Matthew Keller
> Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 8:13 AM
> To: VAUGHN THURMAN - SWIFT SYSTEMS INC
> Cc: arin-ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] The non-deployment of IPv6 - The 
> Economic Factor
> 
> Sorry to dredge an "old" thread back, but I'm catching up on 
> PPML and Vaughn's note really nailed a large segment of what 
> I've been explaining for several years now when dealing with 
> the "deploy IPv6 or you suck and are a bad netizen" crowd.
> 
> > This (*The Economic Factor*) should not be underestimated
> 
> I'll go one step further - Deploying IPv6 across a 
> perfectly-running enterprise network is excruciatingly daunting.
> 
> This isn't daunting because admins lack the expertise or 
> confidence to do so, or haven't done it a bajillion times in 
> test environments, it's because our customers (and bosses) 
> don't care - they don't care one lick that you're rolling out 
> IPv6, whatever that is. The network is _working_, everything 
> is _fine_ and they very simply don't want to risk something 
> not working anymore: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The 
> customer has plenty of other things they _do_ want.

The customers and bosses likely care more about the operational risk of
adding a new protocol to the production network.  As long as that is
mitigated by planning and testing, you're quite right, the bosses won't
otherwise care about v6 -- *yet*.

After v4 runout, it's an entirely different situation: there will be
significant business risk in *not* embracing IPv6.  If it's gonna break, ya
wanna fix it before it does.

> There is little-to-no consumer-driver to enable IPv6 in 
> established networks, and when coupled with Vaughn's 
> assessment of economic dissuasion, it paints a picture that 
> unless you are very well-off (capitally and/or 
> human-resourcely), _forced_ by outside powers (something to 
> show your customers and bosses to justify the risk of 
> change), or setting up a new network from scratch (you'd be stupid not
> to): Trying to get "normal", established edge networks to 
> deploy IPv6 is one-step down from trying to herd cats.

There are many folks who don't care about exactly how the Internet works, but
they have got a set of expectations about whether it will work and whether
they can make money with it.  In my experience, it's usually those sorts of
folks that call the shots and control the purse strings.  I'm not worried
about the economics or about getting management endorsement for v6 deployment
when the time comes.

> --
> Matthew Keller
> Information Security Officer/Network Administrator Computing 
> & Technology Services State University of New York @ Potsdam 
> Potsdam, NY, USA _______________________________________________


-Brian Knight 
Sr. Network Engineer 
Mizuho Securities USA Inc
http://www.mizuho-sc.com/ 

* Please note that I do not speak for my employer - only for myself. 

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