IPv6 Summit

Los Angeles, California
June 2004

IPv6 summit certainly had very encouraging presentations mostly for the technologists by the technologists. Of course, the Department Of Defense(DoD) mandate of June 2003 (which requires all DoD software and hardware procurement effective Oct 2003 to be IPv6-enabled) is a big push for IPv6 in the US. However, I was struggling to find business and market reasons why enterprises have to move to IPv6 today:

• US Navy folks were stating that a US ship could have more IP address space than an entire country in Asia. So, running out of address space is not a big reason to move to IPv6, at least not in the US.
• Network Address Translation(NAT) devices seem to have helped many companies with the shortage of IP addresses in the mean time.
• Even though, NATs are not ideal, but they work in the short term. Most IT folks look at them not just as helping with IP address issues, but as a security measure (security by obscurity).
• Getting rid of that perception for NATs will take a lot of education and awareness.There are no real compelling applications for IPv6 at this point.
• A big reason to move to IPv6 would be to be interoperable with other nations that must go to IPv6 since they are running out of IPv4 addresses.
• But the promise of true end to end applications, quality of service and better security may be at risk by delaying IPv6.
• My advice to IPv6 folks: Enough on technology benefits, work on the applications! Put yourself in the shoes of IT folks and ask yourself, why do I need to move to IPv6? Is it another headache on top of all the other headaches I got?