How much will the transition to IPv6 cost?
Since network needs and businesses differ, IPv6 transition strategies and related costs will also vary between organisations. Hardware and software vendors are increasingly integrating IPv6 as a standard feature in products, allowing organisations to deploy IPv6 as part of routine upgrade cycles. For many organisations, operational costs, including staff training, and one-time administrative costs to add IPv6 to management databases and documentation, are likely to constitute the majority of the cost of upgrading to IPv6. Organisations that run in-house customised software will experience additional costs to upgrade these programs to IPv6, and enterprises that have test/release processes will see a marginal additional cost for the IPv6 configuration tests. For end-users, operating systems such as Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux now incorporate IPv6 within their latest releases and will automatically use IPv6 if it is available. Applications are expected to follow as the global demand for
