IPv6 Mandates: Choosing a Transition Strategy, Preparing Transition Plans, and Executing the Migration of a Network to IPv6

Chapter 6. Defining the Transition Preparation Steps

	Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.
	--Alexander Graham Bell

While searching for quotes to open this chapter, I found many different ones on the importance of good preparation. Then, while writing this preamble to close out the chapter, I suddenly thought of one expression that I had completely missed and that has implicitly been with me most of my life. That's the motto of the Boy Scouts of America, "Be Prepared." Those two words advise (or command) a person to think ahead of the here and now and put the necessary pieces into place beforehand to handle life's little (and big) emergencies. You'll spend the next fifty or so pages or so reading about how to prepare for your IPv6 transition. As you read the chapter, think about how your particular network's idiosyncrasies apply to the preparation steps described here. For cases that are not covered, make the effort to figure out the right thing to do ahead of time, perhaps based on analogies to or extensions of recommendations that the chapter does discuss. When determining what it is you should do, run the scenarios of what could go wrong in your head and decide how you'll mitigate their impact to the network. Decide how, no matter what the circumstances, you can "Be Prepared."

What You'll Learn

This chapter will help you with figuring out what hardware and software are on your network and, more importantly, what services those assets provide to your network's ...