Many involved in the Federal IPv6 discussion are taking the approach that IPv6 is an unfunded mandate and requires special budgets to be allocated to pay for the transition to IPv6. To the contrary, the basis for IPv6 as an unfunded mandate is simply not true. The song has been played before. Contained in the cost structure of operating an enterprise network are budget elements that provide for hardware and software upgrades as a natural course of the progress of the network's evolution. Recall the days of converting Novell users to IP. There were no special funding grants. With good planning and architectural vision, it happened as a matter of the changing needs of the user community and availability of new applications to fuel transition. Similar hardware and software readiness considerations (processor power, memory, etc) were faced in the crazy dual stack, Novell-to-IP days.

Send us a comment