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I am quite aware of the fact that running such a poll on 4sysops won't reveal representative data. It is not just that I hope I have whetted your appetite for IPv6 with my IPv6 tutorial. It is no secret that some regions, most prominently the emerging markets in Asia, have a bigger interest in deploying IPv6 than do the countries in the west that won't really suffer from the fact that all IPv4 addresses have been taken. And according to the statistics of my web analysis tool, mostly westerners enjoy reading 4sysops.
You know, about two years ago I recommended to disable IPv6 in your organization mostly for security reasons and for reducing complexity. If you followed my advice, you probably didn't miss anything since then. IPv6 still plays no significant role on the Internet and in corporate networks.
It is hard to tell what the next two years will bring. As I've said before, the fact that more and more mobile phones, tablets, e-book devices, TV sets, etc. require IP addresses could make the introduction of IPv6 interesting also for countries in the west. The sheer number of new Internet devices could mean that NAT (Network Address Translation) will reach its limits earlier than many expect.
One thing is for sure, though—IPv6 won't come gradually; it will come overnight. It is always like this with these new technologies. Do you remember how IPv4 came to your organization? The Internet technology has been available for decades before suddenly everyone wanted to be connected as fast as possible. I think CompuServe was the first big online service that got connected to the Internet. After that, the other online services didn't want to fall behind and so within a relatively short time period everyone wanted to be "in," as Steve Ballmer would express it today.
I think, it will be the same way with IPv6. Who knows, maybe the iPhone 6 will be the first IPv6-only device, and Steve Jobs will once again be the man who made it all possible. The question will be how fast your organization can make the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. This is certainly nothing that can be done on the fly. Thus it might make sense to get ready for the big change before there is a real need for it.
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On the other hand, you might just wasting resources if you deploy a technology that increases costs, but not productivity, in your company. If you deployed IPv6 two years ago, as some IPv6 enthusiasts recommended, you most likely did it just for the fun of it. So what will you do?
We will deploy it when the switches we currently purchase have IPv6 capabilities in them at the same current price. So far most of the managed switches that also have IPv6 capabilities are significantly more expensive.
It is only a matter time until switches without IPv6 support won’t be available anymore. This would then be a clear sign that the IPv6 breakthrough is imminent.
We got our PIv6 allocation from RIPE NCC just the other week. Looking forward to get it deployed.
RE:switch & hardware costs. This is just incorrect. IPv6 has been a standard that every networking gear, including your cheap home Linksys router, has support for and has been supporting since the late 90’s. If you bought anything hardware since 2003, at worse case, you may have to run an firmware upgrade. But if your firmware is that old to begin with, you need to upgradge anyways. For many Cisco devices its just a matter of entering the right CLI commands to turn the IPv6 on.