Overview of Lessons Learned Deploying IPv6

1. Lessons learned by Organizations. 

No attempt has been made to extract lessons learned by organizations that have deployed IPv6. Instead, references to original presentations, papers, studies, publications, and articles are referenced so that the lessons learned can be understood in context.

Materials referenced in this topic come from a wide variety of sources, including conference presentations, research papers, industry studies, commercial provider publications, and news media. These materials are grouped into ten subtopics:

1. United States (US) Department of Defense (DoD) Organizations
2. Other US Federal Government Organizations
3. Networking Equipment Manufacturers, Services, and Customers
4. IPv6 Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
5. Academic Community
6. Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) and Software Development Organizations (SWDOs)
7. Non-commercial Organizations
8. European and Asian IPv6 Communities
9. Caribbean and Latin American Communities
10. Australian IPv6 Community
11. The Small Office/Home Office (SOHO)

Note: The majority of the transitions referenced in this topic were from an IPv4 (only) networking infrastructure to a dual-stack (both IPv6 and IPv4) networking infrastructure. However, a few transitions listed in subtopics 3 through 6 and subtopic 10 describe an IPv4 (only) networking infrastructure transition to an IPv6 (only) networking infrastructure.

Reports produced by the Offices of the Inspector Generals (OIG) or Government Accountability Offices (GAO) for various US government organizations referenced in the IPv6 and IoT Policy, Guidance and Best Practices article in the General Information section also sometimes provide lessons learned. The IPv6 Network Testing Results article in the Testing section provides some lessons learned while testing IPv6 networks. The SDN Lessons Learned, Training, and Testing article in the SDN Knowledge Base section provides some lessons learned while deploying Cloud Computing using IPv6-enabled Software Defined Networking virtualization technology.

1.1 US DoD Organizations. 

1.2 Other US Federal Government Organizations.

1.3 Networking Equipment Manufacturers, Services, and Customers.

1.4 Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

1.5 Academic Community.

 Note: The European 6NET project reported lessons learned by several colleges and universities, networking customers and ISPs of all sizes. The 6NET project began in 2002 and completed in Jun 2005, followed by the 6DISS project which completed in Sept 2007; followed by 6DEPLOY and 6DEPLOY-2 (www.6deploy.eu) which completed in Feb 2013. A more recent European IPv6 project was Governments Enabled with IPv6 (GEN6), which completed in May 2015. Deliverables and Presentations under the Publications tab of the GEN6 website provide additional material. The next European IPv6 project was IPv6 Framework for European Governments, which completed in 2018. Then came the European Union Internet Standards Deployment Monitoring Website project.

1.6 Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) and Software Development Organizations (SWDOs). 

1.7 Non-commercial Organizations.

1.8 European and Asian IPv6 Communities.

1.9 Caribbean and Latin American Communities

1.10 Australian IPv6 Community

1.11 The Small Office/Home Office (SOHO). 

2. DREN IPv6 Pilot lessons learned summaries. If you want to discover the lessons learned by the DREN dual-stack pilot during the 2003 through 2014 time period, without having to read through the detailed articles that comprise the majority of the IPv6 Knowledge Base, you have four choices:

• This presentation and accompanying white paper provides an executive overview of the DREN IPv6 Pilot. They describe challenges overcome by the DREN IPv6 Pilot.
• This article provides a mid-level review of the DREN IPv6 Pilot and lessons learned during its deployment of IPv6: DREN IPv6 Pilot — 3 years of IPv6 in the real world. This covers the history, organization, processes, and results of the DREN IPv6 Pilot as of 2006. It discusses the reasons for the success of the DREN IPv6 Pilot, and provides some details (elapsed time, hours, dollars, training) for how “success” was measured (metrics). If you are really in a hurry and only have time to look at a couple of slides, then look at slides 44-47.
• This presentation provides a mid-level assessment of the DREN IPv6 Pilot lessons learned as of 2014.
• In a series of briefings started in 2005 and continuing through 2012, more specific technical lessons learned summaries have been presented at the Internet2 Joint Techs workshops. Those briefings are available here in the “Various Presentations” section of the DREN IPv6 Backbone website (archived 2012).

3. DREN IPv6 Pilot lessons learned details. The six sections that follow the Deployment section (IP Transport, Infrastructure, Network Management, Security, Applications, and Testing) contain articles providing more detailed descriptions of the lessons learned by DREN as well as by numerous other organizations while deploying IPv6, together with informal guidelines and aides to help in deploying IPv6.

4. Recipients of DREN IPv6 Pilot lessons learned. Lessons learned have been provided by the DREN IPv6 Pilot to other organizations through conference presentations, participation in numerous DoD, Service, and other Federal organizations' working groups, and in response to questionnaires received from commercial companies and Federal organizations.

• OMB Enterprise Architecture (EA) Success Story: This information was provided to the Office of Management and Budget in response to a request and was subsequently published on their website.
• RAND survey: This information was provided to the RAND Corporation in response to a request and was subsequently incorporated into a report entitled “Security Challenges to the Use and Deployment of Disruptive Technologies”. (See Chapter 6)
• RTI International survey: Information was provided to the RTI International corporation in preparing a report for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) entitled “Department of Commerce Planning Report 05-2, IPv6 Economic Impact Assessment Final Report”, and also used in preparing a paper entitled “Could IPv6 Improve Network Security? And, If So, at What Cost?”.
• v6Transition survey: Information was provided to the v6Transition corporation in response to a request and was subsequently incorporated into a report entitled “Vol. 1: A Guide for Federal Agencies Transitioning to IPv6″. This report was the first in a series of 4 volumes published during 2006 through 2008. That series is available by going here and then clicking on World Report Series.

5. Lessons learned from protocol transitions prior to IPv4. Networks used other protocols prior to IPv4. A comprehensive summary of lessons learned during earlier protocol transitions was provided by Tony Hain here. Two important IETF RFCs specific to the transition to IPv4 are RFC 801 ”NCP/TCP Transition Plan” and RFC 942 “Transport Protocols for Department of Defense Data Networks.” They discuss basic issues and provide a few warnings against tempting shortcuts. A retrospective article on the shortcomings of the Network Control Protocol (NCP) is available. (Caution: Published on April Fools' Day, 2011!).