IPv6 Success Stories: Hindsight and Hurdles

At the ARIN 51 Public Policy and Members Meeting in April 2023, a panel of five community members who have contributed to the IPv6 case studies on our blog or have other IPv6 deployment experience joined us for a compelling and informative discussion moderated by ARIN President and CEO John Curran. In this IPv6 Success Stories series we’re highlighting the experiences, insights, lessons learned, and tips for successful IPv6 deployment shared by those panelists.

In the panel’s Q&A session, ARIN President and CEO John Curran asked the panelists questions to elicit more details about their deployment experiences for other organizations to consider when it comes to IPv6.

What would you have done differently in your IPv6 deployment?

Matthew Wilder, Senior Engineer at TELUS Communications, responded to this first question by explaining that "the sooner you can get more people involved and aware, the better; you’re going to need that core team." He also identified procurement as an area that could have been improved in the deployment process at TELUS, emphasizing the importance of establishing clear parameters that acquired technologies must have IPv6 support.

What was the biggest hurdle you faced?

Ben Bittfield, an IPv6 contractor, explained that his biggest hurdle was having it seem like he was crying wolf about IPv4 exhaustion concerns, especially when he kept having to push out those timelines due to the success of CGNAT.

Madhura Kale, Principal Product Manager Network & Compute at Amazon Web Services (AWS) , said that, as a product owner, her biggest hurdle is communicating to customers requesting IPv6 for something that it’s not just a matter of the network. Rather, IPv6 happens at different layers, and the applications and the software and managed services you build on top need to be IPv6-enabled.

Brent Mc Intosh , CTO of MCNET-SOLUTIONS, identified his biggest hurdle as finding the right approach to convince executive management teams that IPv6 deployment should happen. He noted that it always came down to a financial decision, and that this is no longer a major issue as IPv6 is becoming an easier sell.

Brian Jones, Assistant Director of Operations at Virginia Tech , echoed Mahura’s response and expressed his wish that Virginia Tech’s team had gotten their service and applications deployment folks involved much earlier. While their IPv6 deployment was a great collaborative effort between the academic research side and the network team, Brian questioned, "How much can you really do over IPv6 until you get your services and applications in place?"

Matthew referred to the quote from former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about "known knowns … known unknowns … [and] unknown unknowns," emphasizing the need to identify those elements as quickly as possible by asking all teams involved what gaps need to be closed to make IPv6 a reality for your network and your customers.

Stay tuned for the next installment of this series which will focus on making the business case for IPv6.