A step you should have right at the top of your IPv6 implementation plan is a training agenda for your engineers and operators.
All sorts of training is available to you, from intensive 5-day hands-on classes like the ones offered by my friends at Command Information to [Warning: Shameless Plug follows] the one-day seminars I offer through my consulting practice to the free and quite good tutorials that crop up at industry meetings like NANOG and APRICOT.
Or, you could just read a book.
There are enough options available to you that you’ll have no problem finding the right resources for what you want to accomplish, as long as you’ve put a little effort into finding out just what it is you want—and need—to accomplish.
I do recommend that you avoid the IPv6 courses offered by equipment or application vendors. Not that they are bad; they’re just too narrowly focused. As with all other IP protocols, nurture a general knowledge base; armed with the right foundation knowledge, learning a specific vendor’s product is usually just a matter of reading a manual or two.
In a nutshell, the objective of your IPv6 training plan should be to eventually bring your understanding of IPv6 to an equivalent level with your understanding of IPv4. This is similar to the overall objective of your IPv6 implementation plan, which is to eventually be able to support everything in your network with both IPv4 and IPv6.
The good news is that because you already understand IPv4, getting up to speed on IPv6 is not difficult; it’s not that different. Sure, the address is 128 bits instead of 32 bits and is written in hexadecimal instead of decimal, but functionally they’re almost the same. In fact IPv6 addresses (once you get used to that ugly colon-separated hex format) are simpler to work with than IPv4 addresses. Routing, DNS, DHCP… In the big picture they are pretty much the same in IPv6.
And as with a good implementation plan, a training plan that spans a reasonably long time—two or three years or more—can save you money.
But again like the overall IPv6 implementation plan, you need to get started now on your training plan. Don’t put it off and risk getting caught having to come up to speed quickly and under pressure, which is always costly and risky.
Network World and I are going to try something new: A live hosted chat in which you can pose questions and I’ll do my best to answer in real time.
Join me for this live chat on August 1, at 2PM Eastern (18:00 GMT). No registration is required; just point your browser to:
www.networkworld.com/chat
I hope to “see” you there!
