IPv6 Network Administration

Deploying IPv6

At this stage, we have looked at a good deal of the background information and deployment techniques relevant to IPv6. With this knowledge under our belt, it's time to start thinking about applying it to your own situation. As with any process, deciding what to do is half the battle—and executing on those decisions is the other.

The first question to consider during the planning process is the motivation for the change. You're thinking about enabling IPv6 in your network—why? Perhaps you have been handed a business requirement to support it by a certain date. Perhaps the standards for your specific network mandate it. Is there a technology trial planned? Or maybe you are an ISP who needs to deliver native IPv6 routing services to its edge networks. Indeed, perhaps customers are even asking for it!

Whatever the motivation is, it will help to establish what the important parts of the implementation are by identifying which areas of the network need attention. (For example, if you are converting your desktop network, the important parts are the desktop network itself, its path to the outside world, and its path to internal services.) You may be required to be more or less formal, depending on your organizational environment, but we would strongly recommend the production of some kind of document listing the existing network elements, describing their ability to support IPv6, and identifying of which parts will need to run IPv6 in the future. This allows you to prioritize ...