You must know what you have in order to understand what must be changed in an IPv6 implementation, and the only way to understand that is to take inventory. A simple “supports IPv6” checkbox is insufficient; from the feasibility study you should know just what IPv6 features must be supported, and your inventory checklist should reflect that. For example, if you plan to route using OSPFv3, it is not enough to check off that your router interfaces can support IPv6 addresses. The router must support that specific routing protocol. At the same time, if you have chosen OSPFv3, you probably don’t care if your routers support RIPng, IS-IS IPv6 extensions, or other IPv6 routing protocols. So your inventory should account for specific software versions in all of your inventoried equipment in order to understand the specific IPv6 features, if any, that software version supports.
You only need to inventory your entire network if you plan to implement IPv6 over the entire network. In many applications IPv6 will be introduced into subsections of the network. Anything that will support or “touch” IPv6, even potentially, must be examined.
Depending on your specific plans, the inventory might cover:
- Routers and any switches examining or managed by IP
- OSS
- DNS
- IPv6 address management systems
- Configuration management systems
- Network management systems
- Network monitoring systems
- Inventory management systems
- Provisioning systems
- DHCP, if stateful address assignment is required
- SNMP systems
- Syslog servers
- NTP servers
- Backoffice systems
- Billing
- Ticketing
- Customer relations management systems
- Database systems
- Security
- Firewalls
- Intrusion detection systems
- End-user operating systems
- End-user services and service components
- Server interfaces and operating systems
- Web
- FTP
- VoIP system components
- Video system components
- Mobile system components
This list is likely only partial in relation to your own network and its unique components and services, but it gives you an idea of the extent of the inventory.
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