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

Jerry Klonaper jerry.klonaper at gmail.com
Thu Mar 7 03:10:35 UTC 2013


Not sure how to avoid the legal entanglements my employer has placed in the
IT teams path but I'll try to provide a real-world example without
breaking confidentially agreements we all were required to sign for
continued employment at a very large US-based bank.

Our senior IT team had proposed a multi-year upgrade to v6 for our existing
internal network, external services and connectivity to partner companies
in 2009. It was fully funded in 2010, with staffing, vendor reqs and
milestones set.

At the end of 2012 our companies senior finance team reviewed the benefits
and progress. They came away with a very simple view but alas one which
could not be overcome. They held that our bank did not gain any strategic
advantage by rolling out v6 but instead now had two entire security and
software profiles to maintain.

Hence our company has "mothballed" the project and has reassigned the
entire team to other business needs. So, our globally known brand will only
keep a nominal amount of ongoing public statements of being in support of
v6 when in reality we are no longer going to deploy it until the market
demands it.

I have been employed here through two mergers and thought very hard about
leaving, as did several of us that put a lot of effort into the project.
But in the end, the job is secure, it is not my company to tell them they
are wrong and I can't fault the logic no matter how much I wish. Upon
reading this thread I'm dumbstruck at each of the arguments.

None really matter. I had to agree, there was zero gain to be found for my
company, today or in the immediate future, to proceed but there is plenty
of downside. I read the zealots comments and know that they will claim we
are fools. We, as a team, thought so too. But now several months removed,
we all actually agree with the business/finance group.

So there it is. I cannot give specifics, but a well-known global bank has
turned out the lights for now on the v6 deployment. It wasn't due to the
lack of selling to executives, as this thread contends can be done, but due
to the lack of any business case that could be found.

Jerry



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