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Re: v6ops:IPv4 vs. IPv6 operational costs

My assumption is that there will be a one-off operational cost of updating
procedures and scripts, and re-training of staff, when a network switches
to dual stack. But after that peak, IPv6 will just be part of normal
operations and won't stand out as a separate cost at all.

Of course, if you choose a complex co-existence strategy, interworking
boxes will create operations costs of their own. Anybody who's operated
protocol gateways of any kind knows this. That's why I've always been
a strong advocate of straightforward dual stack solutions.

A few years down the road, the simplicity due to having enough address
space and no more NAT-related glitches and complexities should contain
operations costs - but that really is intangible today.

    Brian

Pekka Savola wrote:

On Wed, 23 Nov 2005, Dwight Jamieson wrote:


Looking a few years down the road, assuming that bulk of the bleeding is
over, will operating that network be simpler, easier, cheaper than
operating a network with private addressing today?
Once that point is reached, I'd suspect so. There's also an alternative or a variation: keep using the existing v4 infrastructure (for simpler applications), but introduce the new apps to (only) v6. 


How painful is introducing new applications behind NAT/ALGs? What
percentage of an IT department's budget spent on issues relating to
private addressing?
That's a good question. I'd guess that getting non-trivial apps (e.g., VoIP, video conferencing, etc.) to work across NATs is non-trivial exercise. I'd guess that most cost is borne by those folks who write and need to support those applications. That includes the enterprise if the app is important enough to the enterprise.