According to a Network World article business incentives are completely lacking today for upgrading to IPv6. The next-generation Internet protocol does not have a reason to be, according to a survey of network operators conducted by the Internet Society (ISOC).
In the report, ISOC says that ISPs, enterprises, and network equipment vendors report that there are “no concrete business drivers for IPv6.” However, survey respondents said customer demand for IPv6 is on the rise. They are planning or deploying IPv6 because they feel it is the next major development in the evolution of the Internet. All of the ISOC survey respondents said they are planning for IPv6, and most have begun deployment.
IPv6 deployment remains spotty, even for organizations committed to the technology, the survey found. When asked how they were deploying IPv6, a little over half said they were deploying IPv6 on parts of their network rather than their whole network. Several respondents said they envision parts of their networks never operating with IPv6.
What’s driving network operators to IPv6 is demand from customers rather than IPv4 address depletion. The survey found almost half of the respondents report customer pressure to migrate to IPv6. Fewer respondents indicated a need for additional address space or the desire for simpler addressing or less complexity on their networks.
According to the survey, 77% of the respondents are using dual-stack, running IPv4 and IPv6 side-by-side. 45% of respondents used some kind of tunneling to implement IPv6 on top of their existing IPv4 networks. However, tunneling was largely viewed as a temporary measure that either had been phased out or would be phased out in the near future. Tunneling will be turned off when their upstream networking provider offered native IPv6 service. 45% of respondents stated that they had part of their network running a native IPv6 deployment.
More than half of the survey respondents said that additional address space is the primary motivator for IPv6. Network operators put less weight on the auto-configuration, built-in security, and mobility features that are found in IPv6.
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The Network World article misses the point. The article does note that ISOC contracted 90 members and only twenty-two organizations responded for a response rate of less than 25%. Not the best body of work to declare there is no business reason to deploy IPv6.
Experts predict IPv4 addresses will be gone by 2012. At that point, all ISPs, government agencies, and corporations will need to support IPv6 on their backbone networks. IP addresses are like crude oil, there is only so much of it around. Scarce resources cost more as the resource pool decreases.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.