It’s a somewhat open question, however, lets look at some of the possibilities.

Addressing:

Many companies are starting to reach the limit of their address blocks. NAT has helped, however, it was only designed as a stopgap measure in the mid 90’s. The real advantage to IPv6 out of the gate is the MUCH larger address space.

Also, if implemented correctly, users may not even know.

Another tangent regarding addressing is that of administration, to maintain the archive for an allocation of a /32 ( 79 Octillion ) a spreadsheet simply wont do.

Mobility:

Depending on your company’s operational practices, it may be FAR easier to telecommute with IPv6 as Mobility is built into the protocol. This would allow for effective telecommuting.

Security:

IPSec is built into the IPv6 protocol stack. This is not an add-on as it was in IPv4. Also, given the nature of the EUI-64, if implemented properly, it could provide certain levels of security and/or authentication based on the ‘burned-in’ or MAC address of the card.

Applications:

Many applications will need to be examined and perhaps re-written. This is nothing akin to the Y2k issues as time is not running out. However, new applications, in particular, the communications, should be written to the new AF_INET6 API.

DNS:

Way back … when IPv4 was just starting to take hold, it seems that DNS (Domain Name System) was an afterthought at some companies. However, with IPv6 we will be FAR more dependent on DNS than ever. For example, 10.1.1.100 is not as challenging to remember as 2001:0bd8:fedc:5a19:7312:0030:654e:fed1/64

These are just some thoughts on what we’ve see so far. As more ideas and projects are encountered we’ll be sure to keep the page updated accordingly.