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IPv6 Deployment Misperception: Enterprises aren’t deploying IPv6

Top 5 Misperceptions about Enterprise IPv6 Deployment - #1

By Shannon McFarland on Tue, 08/02/11 - 12:49pm.

And the #1 IPv6 misperception is…drumroll please…enterprises are not deploying IPv6.  Uh, no. Bzzzt.

I have read blogs and articles from the so-called industry expert journalists for years as well as vendors (certain folks within Cisco included) and other people that have stated enterprises have no reason to deploy therefore they aren’t.  Gee, then these 6-12 customer design and deployment meetings I have had with enterprise customers for the last 9 years have been nothing but a dream.

Kids, they have been and are deploying at an ever-increasing rate.  So much so that my peers and I are having trouble keeping up with the demand for design and deployment guidance.

I understand where this misperception comes from, I do.  See, enterprises, unlike service providers, have no real justifiable reason to tell anyone they are deploying IPv6.  In the service provider world they need to let the world know their plans and capabilities for two reasons.  One, they need to protect their existing customer base from leaving them for another provider due to them not having a good enough support model for IPv6.  Two, they need to steal customers away from the other guy who is lacking on their IPv6 support.  Enterprises have no such justification, at least they didn’t.

Back in the day I would be in meetings with enterprise customers and their legal and industry/investor relations people would actually say “don’t tell anyone what we are doing with IPv6 as it will make people think we are risky and open to outages or attacks over this unknown protocol”.  Now days those same groups of people say “we should somehow advertise that we are supporting IPv6 access to our site so people will know we are prepared for the future”.  It is odd how things change.

You can watch a video interview on these topics and others by checking out the Cisco Live YouTube video here:

 

So, that is it the “Top 5 Misperceptions” countdown is done.  It has been fun reading the comments and I hope to guest blog again on different topics.

Shannon