Cost of IPv6 for IT operations team

[Jens Link]

Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at ipinc.net> writes:

> But as for operations costs, I would say, zero

I don't agree. In a dual-stacked environment there is more work to do. 

1. Setting up Servers (and Services)

   You have at least two addresses to configure, which leads to two DNS
   records, two services to be monitored, more firewall rules, ... And in
   the end more things to document. 

2. Troubleshooting

   When looking for problems you always have to remember that there are now two
   protocols and then the fun begins: Is this problem only v4? Or only
   v6? Or do have a completely different problem. 

3. Layer 8+9 

   People have little or no experience with IPv6. They need more time to
   configure stuff and troubleshoot problems. And they will forget to
   configure one thing or the other and they will forget that there are
   two protocols to troubleshoot.And then there will always be people
   who don't want IPv6 an will always blame it[1].

> The reason is if you don't deploy sooner or later you will have a
> problem related to IPv6. 

Ack. 

> Then you will spends lots of time finding and correcting.  That time
> is roughly equal to the extremely small amount of additional time that
> the techs deal with IPv6 on a network that has had it properly setup.

It will be worse. When you start implementing IPv6 because the latest
version of your critical application requires IPv6 and you need IPv6
tomorrow you'll have a real problem. You have to touch many things at
once, you may have to buy hardware and you'll be looking for qualified
external support. Problem is: Many other companies will do the same. 

I'll have to remember to buy a big stash of T-Shirts with "Told you so!" 

Jens

[1] Someone told me a story about a database server which stopped
working after IPv6 was deployed. The DB amdin blamed the IPv6
deployment. Of course it hat nothing to do with IPv6, the hard drive was
full. 
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