CAIDA's 2012 IPv6 survey -- need network operators to fill out

Tue Mar 13 21:56:14 UTC 2012

[direct link to IPv6 operational deployment [plans] survey 
if you don't need background:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/749797/ipv6survey
]

hello folks,

we're trying to do some quantitative modeling of                               
the IPv4->IPv6 transition, including the impact of                             
IPv4 markets on likely future trajectories, but                                
really need some empirical data to parametrize our model.                      
with much help from many patient reviewers of the questions,
we finally have a survey ready for operators to fill out.

below i'll give an extremely terse description of the model
just to give you an idea of why we need this granularity.
there are another 10 dense pages describing the model pending 
peer review at NSF, which i can send to anyone interested in 
giving us feedback on it.  but it's not necessary for 
responding to the survey. also note the checkbox to 
indicate you're amenable to further followup questions.
survey will be available till 12 april 2012.
(or tell us if you want to fill it out but need more time.)

survey link, again:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/749797/ipv6survey

thanks much,
k, amogh, emile

------------------------------

Most prior work on modeling the adoption of new technologies assumed a
binary decision at the organization level -- in the context of
IPv6, this decision means switching completely to IPv6 or not at
all. We propose to account for the fact that an organization may
deploy IPv6 incrementally in its network, meaning that it will
continue to have both IPv4 and IPv6 space.  A key aspect of our model
is that instead of a binary state per organization, we work at the
granularity of devices, which are entities that need to be
assigned IP addresses. We consider a device to correspond to a single
instance of an IP addressing need, which typically corresponds to an
interface. Though there can be multiple interfaces (``devices'') on
the same computer/router, and multiple addresses (``virtual
interfaces'') on a single interface, we will model each need for an
independent IP address as an independent device.  We define device
classes based on the nature of addresses used to number those devices,
e.g., public IPv4, IPv6, dual-stack-NATv4, dual-stack-public-IPv4, etc.
We model the network growth requirements of each network in terms 
of the number of additional devices in that network that need to 
be configured in one of these device classes.

... (then we catalog a list of costs and incentives associated with the
decision to adopt IPv6 or satisfy one's addressing needs with IPv4-based
technologies. costs parameters include the costs of IPv4 addresses, NAT
deployment, renumbering, and translation between IPv4 and IPv6. we will
also try to model incentives such as policies and regulations.)

We will then model two separate decision processes for a network, based
on whether it seeks to add new devices (to expand its network, provision
for new customers, deploy new services, etc.), or whether it seeks to
optimize the numbering of its existing devices from among the five
device classes defined previously. The latter operation may be necessary
if external factors and costs have changed such that the network could
substantially lower its costs by numbering its devices differently. We
want to structure the model (based on feedback from opsfolk like you)
to capture both initial costs as well as ongoing operational costs of
supporting a given configuration of devices for a specified window
following the decision.  Iteration of the decision process continues
for each network until we reach a state where no network has the incentive
to change the numbering of its devices, which represents the equilibrium.
....