The IPv6 magic trick

The transition from internet protocol version four to version six is much like this magic act. The Web that was once one is now two.

Strong business case

Internet service providers have been fairly reticent about adopting IPv6 as there has not been a strong business case: the clients don't feel a need for it but, and there is a significant investment in the course of time, training and money to upgrade to support IPv6.

Many devices and appliances, just as printers, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phones and older network devices, are only IPv4 capable, so we will have to support IPv4 for those devices. This will be a nightmare.

To communicate with devices inside organisations furthermore work-arounds will be required to pass IPv4 information to these legacy devices. Proxies may solve part of this problem, nevertheless some devices will need access to the IPv4 internet.

Even greater use of RFC 1918 addresses

One result of this will be an even greater use of RFC 1918 addresses by ISPs to share their relatively more scarce IPv4 addresses among more clients. Users of VPN's already experience similar problems when their local networks use the same sections of RFC 1918 address space as their corporate network.

As a result of more and more organisations adopting new technologies and business practices surrounding BPM, SOA, and Web 2.0, fundamental changes have arisen in the way IT and business stakeholders work at the same time. Make this into an possibility - read on.

Business Case Considerations for Improving Enterprise Performance. As you consider the opportunities to improve speed and agility across your enterprise, identify operations and processes where faster and better-informed decision-making can make a tangible difference in the performance of the business. As a point of reference, we have seen enterprises achieve significant gains in these areas not only with workflows and processes that involve mobile or virtual workers, nevertheless also with fixed-location employees as then. In the following sections, we will examine a number of these areas, and illustrate the business benefits using the experiences of real enterprises that have incorporated collaboration into their mainstream business processes and workflows.