BT Connect IPv6 Industry Survey Results July 2, 2014
IPv6 deployments are steadily increasing. Attitudes are shifting from avoidance to acceptance despite lingering business case concerns. For the fourth consecutive year, over 50 percent of survey respondents indicated that they have deployed, are in the process of deploying, or plan to deploy IPv6 in their networks. Nineteen percent of respondents indicated that they have already deployed IPv6 in some or all portions of their networks, up from sixteen percent last year. Another 21 percent are currently engaged in the process of IPv6 implementation and fourteen percent plan to deploy within two years. The remaining responders will either wait to follow a bottom-up end-user demand-driven approach (10%), not begin deployment within the next two years (6%), or have not even yet considered IPv6 deployment (14%). Besides continued global Internet presence (61%), survey respondents indicated the potential for innovative IPv6 applications (47%) and the Internet of Things (46%) as leading benefits to IPv6 deployment. But despite the steady progress in IPv6 deployments over the last few years, many organizations still face obstacles. Leading among these by a wide margin consistently over the last three years was the inability to demonstrate a strong business case with 27 percent of responses this year, which increased from 25 percent last year and 22 percent the year prior. Other leading obstacles included the complexity of infrastructure upgrades (19%), and the cost of equipment upgrades (11%) which also points to business case concerns. Many enterprises indicated a plan to deploy IPv6 only on Internet-facing servers initially, though most plan full deployment throughout their networks as the ultimate goal. The most common approach to IPv6 deployment was dualstack by a wide margin for both enterprises and service providers. Key Findings Leading IPv6 deployers include operators of very large networks. 83 percent of those managing networks of over one million IP addresses or 300k subscribers and 75 percent of those of managing over 100k IP addresses or 30k subscribers have deployed, are deploying or will deploy within two years. Educational/non-profit (75%), service provider (65%) and multinational enterprise (53%) organizations likewise lead deployers by organization type. While respondents expressed confidence in IPv6 technology and believe deployment will add value and benefits, many (27%) consider lack of a strong business case justification to demonstrate sufficient ROI as the leading barrier to deployment. As many more organizations actively deploy IPv6 and with growing acceptance of the inevitability of the necessity of IPv6, the buzz around IPv6 in general has shifted from talking about deploying to engaging in deployment and even planning to leverage the potential benefits including innovative applications and the Internet of Things (IoT). As in last year s survey results, most organizations will not be satisfied simply deploying IPv6 on a portion of their networks but will look to deploy more broadly as 62 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: IPv6 is required for deployment across my entire network. The dual-stack deployment approach led other IPv4- IPv6 co-existence strategies that organizations are utilizing or planning to utilize with 49 percent of enterprises and 39 percent of service providers using or planning to use, followed ultimately by full IPv6 deployment with 29 percent of enterprises and 24 percent of service providers so responding. We need to move to the production version of the Internet running IPv6! -Vint Cerf, Google Chief Scientist IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 2
Introduction In celebration of the launchiversary of World IPv6 Launch on June 6, 2014, BT Diamond IP opened its sixth industry survey requesting opinions about IPv6 deployment and relative merits. This survey was initiated on June 6 and remained open until June 24, 2014. Though the hype of World IPv6 Launch has past, the networking industry continues to march forward, as results of this survey indicated consistently high percentages of active and planned IPv6 deployments. IPv6 Level of Concern The level of huge concern over IPv6 increased in this year s results to 38 percent, up from 32 percent last year as shown in Figure 1. Those moderately concerned remained steady at 44 percent. Concern was heightened in 2011 after IANA s announcement of its allocation of its remaining IPv4 space, but has otherwise continued to rise steadily over recent years. To help determine the status of IPv6 deployments and attitudes about IPv6, BT Diamond IP conducted a webbased survey. The survey was completed by 140 IT or Operations professionals from around the globe and spanning multiple industries. The survey was posted online and invitations to participate were sent to individuals identified as IT and Operations professionals. All survey responses were automatically tabulated into a survey tool. Any individual skipped questions were not included in tabulations. Each chart highlighting unique responses in this report includes the number of valid responses for that particular question (e.g. n=100 indicates 100 responses). Percentages shown in charts may not equal 100 percent due to rounding or to questions enabling multiple answers. Figure 1: Concern about IPv4 address exhaustion (n=140) From an organizational type perspective, educational and non-profit organizations expressed the highest levels of concern with 55 percent indicating a huge concern, followed by service providers at 42 percent. Multinational and national/regional enterprises expressed a huge concern at 35 percent and 33 percent respectively. Government organizations expressed mostly modest concern as illustrated in Figure 2. Figure 2: Concern about IPv4 address exhaustion by organization type (n=140) IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 3
IPv6 Deployments Momentum for IPv6 deployments is progressing steadily as many organizations begin to shift from the analysis phase to the execution phase. Nineteen percent of survey respondents have deployed IPv6 on all or part of their networks, up from sixteen percent from last year s survey and thirteen percent the year before. Another 22 percent are engaged in the process of IPv6 implementation as of now and fourteen percent plan to begin deploying IPv6 within two years. An additional fifteen percent of respondents are currently assessing the costs and benefits of deploying IPv6. The remaining 30 percent have either decided not to begin deployment within the next two years, feel IPv6 is unnecessary or will follow a bottom-up BYOD approach to IPv6 deployment, as employees bring to work their IPv6-enabled mobile devices. Figure 3: IPv6 deployment status (n=140) While Figure 3 illustrates the percentage breakdown of responses from this year s survey, Figure 4 provides a historical perspective. The percentage of those having already deployed IPv6 continues to rise steadily. Those with deployments in progress has varied over the last few years in the 20-27 percent range and those deciding to wait at least two years has remained consistently in the six Figure 4: IPv6 deployment status by year IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 4
to eight percent range. This year s survey results saw a modest jump in those having not even considered IPv6, up this year to fourteen percent from eleven percent and in those awaiting growth in end user demand, jumping from seven percent to ten percent this year. It s interesting to analyze deployment status by vertical market, region and organization size as well. Figure 5 depicts results by organization type, ordered by the sum of the top three criteria, Deployed or deploying or planning. This year educational and nonprofit organizations led service providers, tallying 75 percent and 65 percent respectively across these top criteria. Multinational enterprises ranked third in deployers with 53 percent. Fifty percent of government organizations are among the set of deployers while 42 percent of national/regional enterprises fall into this set. Figure 5: IPv6 Deployment Status by Organization Type While educational and non-profit organizations led deployers this year, Figure 6 illustrates that service providers have led in the past three years. Enterprises have maintained relatively stable proportions of deployers while government organizations have diminished to the 50 percent range after relatively heightened response rates in prior years. Figure 6: IPv6 Deployer History by Organization Type IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 5
Figure 7: IPv6 Deployment Status by Network Size Figure 7 illustrates deployments by network size, ranked left to right by increasing organization or network size, with the proportion of deployers growing respectively. All survey respondents managing very large networks having over one million IP addresses or over 300,000 subscribers indicated that they are deploying or assessing deployment. None of them are waiting. Only fifteen percent of large network operators are waiting, i.e., those managing over 100,000 but less than one million IP addresses. Smaller network operators are more evenly divided among deployers and those assessing or deferring IPv6 deployment, though over half of modestly sized network operators are deployers as are almost half of small network operators. Figure 8 shows results for IPv6 deployment status by region for Asia, Europe, Central/South America and North America. Unfortunately, a statistically insignificant number of responses were tallied from the Middle East and Africa. Within these four regions, a higher percentage of respondents have either deployed or are deploying from last year to this year. About two-thirds of nearly all regions comprise deployers, while just over half of North America respondents are deployers.. Figure 8: IPv6 Deployment Status by Region IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 6
IPv6 Value Perceptions We asked about respondents opinions about the value of IPv6 within their organizations and for the Internet at large. Unfortunately, some of these questions were posed in the negative sense in keeping consistent with past surveys. So some of the commentary in this section cancels out the double negative by inferring most agreed with the affirmative instead of the technically correct most disagreed with the negative format. IPv6 Benefits We asked a new question in this year s survey regarding respondents attitudes about the benefits of IPv6.Multiple selections were permitted for this question and Figure 9 illustrates the relative frequency of responses. Over half of respondents to this question agreed that IPv6 deployment affords a continued Internet presence for IPv4 and IPv6 users. Figure 9: Perceived IPv6 Benefits About 40 percent of respondents indicated the potential for innovative IPv6 applications and support for Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives offered benefits as well. About 29 percent viewed regulatory or industry compliance as beneficial, while 23 percent perceived competitive and leadership positioning as such. Less than eight percent of respondents saw no benefits to deploying IPv6. For example, more respondents disagreed than agreed with the statements that IPv6 has value but does not link to business drivers and that IPv6 does not provide any benefits to my infrastructure or organization. We infer from this that more respondents agreed than disagreed that IPv6 provides benefits and offers business value. On the other hand, more respondents agreed with the statement that IPv6 deployment does not offer a strong enough ROI. We conclude that while respondents recognize benefits and value, some believe these are not yet sufficient to produce a strong return on the investment required for deployment. Figure 10 illustrates the overall results regarding the need and value of IPv6. Over 55 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that IPv6 is required for deployment on my entire network. Only about eighteen percent disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement. As a consistency validation, the converse statement that it is not necessary to implement IPv6 yielded nearly proportional contrary results. IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 7
Figure 10: IPv6 perceived value (n= 140) Historical perspectives on IPv6 s value from past surveys are summarized in Figure 11. The rating scale in this figure was devised by assigning values of one to five for strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree and strongly agree respectively. Hence a value of three indicates a neutral average response, while above three indicates agreement and below 3, disagreement. The three line is highlighted in Figure 11. Most of the positive assertions about IPv6 have generally grown in proportion of agreement this year, particularly that IPv6 deployment is required for full-network deployment and for ubiquitous Internet communications. There is also less agreement with the negative statements that ROI is not strong enough, that IPv6 does not link to business drivers and that IPv6 is unnecessary. While fewer agree that IPv6 deployment supports a strong ROI, the lack of a strong business case remained the primary obstacle to IPv6 deployment as we will discuss later. Figure 11: Historical IPv6 perceived value IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 8
In terms of IPv6 features, Figure 12 summarizes respondents value ratings over this and past surveys, with a rating of five being most valuable and three being neutral. As you can see, responses have consistently rated these attributes above neutral. In reality, security, quality-of-service and flow labels offer roughly equivalent value in both IPv4 and IPv6, while the other attributes do offer contrasts in protocol operation. Expanded address space is certainly a unique advantage of IPv6, while improved mobility with more efficient routing, address autoconfiguration, efficient packet routing with fragmentation performed on the perimeter and the simplified header structure likewise offering perceived feature improvements. Figure 12: Historical IPv6 features ratings
IPv6 Deployment Approaches We asked survey participants what techniques they have used or plan to implement in support of IPv6 deployment, for service providers vs. enterprise respondents. Figure 13 illustrates responses for this survey contrasted with those from the last three years for service providers. Most answers appear roughly the same over the years, with the exception that segmented dual stack approaches on the backbone only or customer-facing only, have seemingly been joined to a larger proportion of service providers supporting dual stack throughout their networks. Note that multiple responses were permitted to these particular questions about deployment techniques, which tends to level out results to some degree. Figure 13: Service provider deployment approaches Enterprise respondents likewise favored dual stack as the deployment technique of choice as illustrated in Figure14. A larger proportion of respondents favored full IPv6 deployment over constrained deployment to Internet facing servers this year than last, while slightly more have no plans to deploy IPv6. Figure 14: Enterprise deployment strategies IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 10
IPv6 Deployment Obstacles We asked survey participants about the single biggest hurdle to overcome when proposing IPv6 deployment within the organization. As Figure 15 indicates, the inability to demonstrate a strong business case was the top response with 27 percent of respondents. The complexity of required infrastructure upgrades to deploy IPv6 and costs of equipment upgrades ranked second and third with nineteen percent and eleven percent respectively. Conversion of applications and middleware and the perception that abundant address space is the sole benefit each ranked fourth among obstacles with eight percent of respondents. Figure 15: Single biggest obstacle to IPv6 deployment (n=140) This top answer also scored highest the last two years as well, that is for as long as it s been a question in the survey! Figure 16 shows how responses to this and other questions have varied over past surveys. Interestingly, there has been a steady decrease in the technical obstacles of application conversion, network services support, training, and security and network management product availability and an increase in cost/business related concerns. Figure 16: Historical IPv6 deployment obstacles IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 11
IPv6 Non-Deployers We asked those respondents who had no plans to deploy IPv6 what steps they were taking, if any, to support IPv6 communications. As in last year s results, responses were largely split among most taking no steps, a quarter relying on Internet Service Provider (ISP) translation services, a fifth implementing in-house translation services, others tunneling and to a much lesser degree, explicitly disallowing IPv6 communications. Figure 17: Mitigation steps for non-deployments Figure 17 illustrates these results from this year s survey results and Figure 18 summarizes corresponding response rates in this and prior years comparatively. The tunneling and translation approaches have vastly diminished in recent years. Figure 18: Historical responses for mitigation steps for non-deployments IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 12
IPv6 Deployment Threshold Our survey asked whether organizations considered a threshold in terms of the proportion of the Internet that was IPv6-enabled that would impel them to deploy IPv6 with some urgency. Figure 18 reflects results from this year and the prior two surveys, which consistently vary widely, though most organizations either have already deployed, are deploying, or have no set threshold but will await industry and business conditions to warrant deployment. Survey Demographics Figure 19 summarizes survey respondent demographics. Geographically, 63 percent of respondents indicated they were from North America, seventeen percent each from Europe and Asia, two percent from Middle East/Africa and three percent from Central/South America.. Figure 19: IPv6 density threshold for triggering deployment (n=140) Conclusions Measurements posted online by various organizations such as the Internet Society point to steadily growing IPv6 deployments within the industry. These survey results corroborate these measurements in finding a majority of survey respondents consistently indicating full or partial deployment or plans for deployment within two years. Attitudes toward IPv6 have evolved from skepticism and denial to acceptance and action. There is no Y2K-like deadline for IPv6 deployment, but as the IPv6 user population grows, the ability to serve Internet users ubiquitously will require IPv6 deployment. And the time for planning your IPv6 deployment is now. Additional Resources BT Diamond IP offers numerous IPv6 resources to help you learn about IPv6 technology, deployment strategies and address management including white papers, webinars, free online IPv6 address planner tool and IPv6 ROI tool, and even books. For access to these resources or for more information about how BT can help, please visit btdiamondip.com or contact us on btdiamondip-sales@bt.com.. Figure 20: Survey respondent locations (n=140) From a network sizing perspective, Figure 20 illustrates that 38 percent of respondents each manage networks of less than 10,000 IP addresses and 34 percent between 10,000 and 100,000 addresses. Eighteen percent of respondents manage networks of 100,000 to one million addresses and ten percent manage networks larger than 1 million addresses. This represents nearly proportional respondents as compared to last year s results. Figure 21: Survey respondents organization sizes (n=140) IPv6 Survey Report BT Diamond IP Page 13
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