What Should an Engineer Address when 'Selling' IPv6 to Executives?

Tue Mar 5 18:41:53 UTC 2013

Hi,

In-line

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 9:55 AM, Mukom Akong T. <mukom.tamon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear experts,
>
> I've found myself thinking about what ground an engineer needs to cover in
> order to convince the executives to approve and commit to an IPv6
> Deployment project.
>
> I think such a presentation (15 slides max in 45 minutes) should cover the
> following aspects:
>
> a) Set the strategic context: how your organisation derives value from IP
> networks and the Internet.
>
> b) Overview of the problem: IPv4 exhaustion
>
> c) Implications of IPv4 Exhaustion to your organization’s business model.
>
> d) Introduction of IPv6 as a solution to IPv4 exhaustion.
>
> e) Understanding the risks involved.
>
> f) How much will deploying IPv6 will cost.
>
> g) Call to action.
>
> I've detailed my thinking into each of these items at <How to ‘Sell’ IPv6
> to Executive Management – Guidance for
> Engineers<http://techxcellence.net/2013/03/05/v6-business-case-for-engineers/>
>>
>
> My question and this is where I'd appreciate some input:
>
> a) To all you engineers out there who have convinced managers - what else
> did you have to address?
>

One of the most important things i see not being stressed enough is
that IPv6 is frequently free or a low-cost incremental upgrade.

So, when calculating ROI / NPV, the hurdle can be very low such that
the cash in-flow / cost savings is not a huge factor since the
required investment is close to nil.

This is not always the case, some legacy stuff won't work on ipv6
without investment.  But, as a plug to all you folks who work at
companies that use a CDN, please ask your CDN to turn IPv6 on for your
website.  This is top-of-mind for me since i just pushed my www folks
on this issue

Here's some relevant pointers for the CDN folks, in many cases its
just a matter of clicking a button in the management portal:

Akamai http://www.akamai.com/ipv6

Edgecast http://www.edgecast.com/ipv6/

Cloudflare https://www.cloudflare.com/ipv6

Amazon http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2011/05/24/elb-ipv6-zoneapex-securitygroups/

Softlayer http://www.softlayer.com/about/network/ipv6

> b) To you who are managers, what else do you need your engineers to address
> in order for you to be convinced?
>
> Regards.
>
> As always, all opinions expressed are mine and do not necessarily represent
> the views of my employers, past or present.
>
> --
>
> Mukom Akong T.
>
> http://about.me/perfexcellence |  twitter: @perfexcellent
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> “When you work, you are the FLUTE through whose lungs the whispering of the
> hours turns to MUSIC" - Kahlil Gibran
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
>
> Mukom Akong T.
>
> http://about.me/perfexcellence |  twitter: @perfexcellent
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> “When you work, you are the FLUTE through whose lungs the whispering of the
> hours turns to MUSIC" - Kahlil Gibran
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------