Grantee	INDIA INTERNET ENGINEERING SOCIETY (IIESoc)
Project Title	IPv6 Deployment at Enterprises
Amount Awarded	USD 30000
Dates covered by this report:	2020-09-14 to 2022-03-31
Report submission date	2022-03-31
Economies where project was implemented	India
Project leader name	Dhruv Dhody
Project Team	Nalini Elkins [email protected] Mohit P. Tahiliani [email protected] Michael Ackermann [email protected] Praneet Kaur [email protected] Priyanka Sinha [email protected]
Partner organization	Industry Network Technology Council (INTC)

Project Summary

IPv6 adoption at large, brick-and-mortar enterprises has lagged. Many feel that unless this issue is addressed, the Internet as a whole will stall at an IPv6 adoption rate of about 60%. The India Internet Engineering Society (https://www.iiesoc.in/), a nonprofit based in India, would like to begin to address this issue. There are many subsidiaries of large corporations in India. Such organizations, primarily use IPv4 addresses. For example, one of the largest mobile providers in India, whose backbone is IPv6, has had to purchase IPv4 addresses on the open market simply to support these corporations. The decision to move to IPv6 is made at the headquarters of these companies - which is often in the United States. The US federal government has recently announced a direction for IPv6-only for the US government. This makes it the right time for this project. IIESoc proposes to work collaboratively with a nonprofit industry consortium in the United States, the Industry Network Technology Council (INTC), to address the issue of IPv6 adoption in large brick-and-mortar enterprises. INTC has done a survey of large enterprises and has found that security, application conversion and training are three of the biggest challenges enterprises have as far as IPv6 adoption. We need to find out exactly what these challenges entail. To that end, we need to have brick-and-mortar enterprises involved. This is an issue because such enterprises do not participate actively in Internet standards bodies. They do participate to some extent in network operations groups. Outreach to these organizations will be a key part of this project. We propose three phases with their corresponding goals. (Subsequent phases may be proposed at the conclusion of phase 3). Phase 1: IPv6 training and migration discussions for enterprises. Goal: Establish IIESoc as a leader in IPv6 space, create visibility for the project, start to create a core group of enterprises. Phase 2: Create a consortium of academia, industry, and government. Goal: Prepare for phase 3 which will create security and application inventory. Phase 3: Create an inventory of application and security challenges in concert with the consortium. Goal: Start to create a methodology to handle the hardest issues in IPv6 conversion. Phase 1 is the necessary precursor and foundation for enterprises to be able to have conversations about what is to be done for IPv6 migration. If they do not receive training and have a forum for discussion of migration issues, the other phases will not be successful. In this application, we only asked for funding for Phase 1 which lasted 12 months. The following webinars have been completed as a part of Phase 1 activity: Introduction to IPv6: Feb 4, 2021 Lab: IPv6 basics: Feb 11, 2021 ​Neighbour Discovery: March 4, 2021 Lab: Neighbor Discovery: March 18, 2021 IPv6 Address Planning: April 8, 2021 Lab: IPv6 Address Planning: April 15, 2021 IPv6 Transition Mechanisms: May 6, 2021 Lab: IPv6 Transition Mechanisms: May 13, 2021 DHCPv6: June 3, 2021 Lab: DHCPv6: June 10, 2021 IPv6 and Cloud: June 17, 2021 Lab: IPv6 and Cloud: June 24, 2021 ​Introduction to IPv6 Security July 8, 2021 An addition to the project also included the travel to in-person IETF 113 by one student.

Table of contents

• Project factsheet information
• Background and justification
• Project Implementation
• Project Evaluation
• Gender Equality and Inclusion
• Project Communication Strategy
• Recommendations and Use of Findings

Background and Justification

IPv6, along with HTTP/2 and TLS, is one of the building blocks for new protocols being developed in the IETF. For example, much of the new work on the Internet-of-things requires IPv6.

Enterprises have failed to adopt IPv6 -- especially on internal networks. Other countries, particularly in Asia, that faced a shortage of IPv4 addresses combined with a rapidly growing technically savvy population numbering in the hundreds of millions are moving rapidly to IPv6. US enterprises are holding back global penetration of IPv6 because US subsidiaries in Asia are often IPv4-only. A major factor in the lagging enterprise IPv6 adoption is that enterprise technicians don't know how IPv6 works. The technicians want training yet the management does not want to pay for such training because they do not see a business need for the adoption of IPv6. This creates an unfortunate cycle where misinformation about the complexity of the IPv6 protocol and unreasonable fears about security and manageability, combined with the perceived lack of urgent business needs to prevent the adoption of IPv6.

Understandably, corporations, having a responsibility to their stockholders, have upgraded to new technologies and architectures, such as IPv6, when it gains them revenue. Thus, legacy protocols persist and technical debt accumulates. If we, as a technical community, do not help enterprises address these problems, we are likely to have a bifurcated world where IPv4 continues its stranglehold on internal enterprise networks. The problem is, of course, that these networks are the backbone of the governmental and financial networks of the world. They cannot be ignored.

There have been quite a few attempts to solve this problem. A number of organizations, even offer free training and certifications. Before we proceed, let us provide some statistics on our own progress in this area: we have over 300 registrations from individuals in the APNIC region for our training classes. These come from over 150 unique organizations, including academia, industry, and government. Many more have downloaded the presentations or watched the recordings on YouTube (around 500 for the introductory session).

We feel that this has been quite a successful effort so far. We credit our success to the following differences in our approach:

We take into account the complex environment of large, end-user organizations that have a multi-tier, multi-platform network environment. For example, such environments may have firewall clusters, zones of control, load balancers, proxies, hybrid cloud, and thousands of applications.

We offer training at a very detailed technical level. Our focus is on what is needed for a real understanding of architecting a complex IPv6 network as well as troubleshooting it. For example, some training courses discuss IPv6 neighbour discovery in one or two foils.  We have a one-hour concept class on neighbour discovery as well as a one-hour lab on it. Our trainers have many years of experience in architecting and diagnosing problems on large enterprise networks so we can tailor our presentations to what is needed.

To conclude, the motivation of our organization to make this effort is that we are in a very good position to reach these large enterprises that are the backbone of the financial and governmental systems of the world. Their adoption of Internet protocols, including IPv6, is critical to the success of the Internet. We believe the Internet to be, on balance, a force for good and wish to support it.

The Asia / Pacific region, due to the relative scarcity of IPv4 addresses, will become a leader in the space of IPv6 conversion, not because they want to but because they have to!  We wish to support this change.

Project Implementation

Partnerships with other organizations, researchers, and community leaders

The main organizations that we are partnering with are:

• Industry Network Technology Council (INTC): for trainers and helping with the project management
• National Institute of Technology: Karnataka (https://www.nitk.ac.in/): for discussions on IPv6 deployment and academic needs

We have also consulted with one of the co-chairs of the IPv6 operations group (v6ops) at the IETF and he has participated in a number of our meetings.

We are honored that APNIC and ARIN leadership have helped promote the project by providing videos for the Connections conference.

Glenn McNight, from the Virtual School of Internet Governance (https://www.virtualsig.org/) has also promoted our content and classes.

How the beneficiary community participated in the project design and implementation. 

Originally we thought that we would have trouble attracting enterprises in the APNIC region.  We thought we might need to go through the government or ministries.  Yet, this has not proved to be a problem at all.  We have publicized our webinars on the APNIC blogs as well as in our IIESoc WhatsApp group. Then, we have grown by word-of-mouth.  For example, from the small country of Papua New Guinea, we have people signed up from:

• University of Papua New Guinea
• Laga Industries Limited
• Department of Personnel Management
• Barrick Gold Corporation
• Seetokui
• Divine Word University
• Telikom PNG Limited
• Papua New Guinea University of Technology
• Centre for Excellence in Information Technology (University of Papua New Guinea)
• Digicel PNG Ltd
• Fincorp
• Adveem Enterprise Limited
• Bank of Papua New Guinea
• Port Moresby General Hospital

• Computers And Internet Technology Services (CAITS)
• Mainland Holdings Limited (MHL)

The sign-ups from Digicel are particularly important as they are an ISP and thus in a position to provide native IPv6 connectivity.

We had an email exchange with one of the people from Papua New Guinea who indicated that with the Coral Sea Cable connecting Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands with Australia, they expect a lot of growth.  One thing they are thinking is that they may run out of IPv4 addresses! Currently, no IPv6 is being offered by any ISP in PNG.  But, they wish to get trained up in preparation.   We will continue to follow their progress.

It seems to us that people are telling others about our classes. The areas where we excel in our implementation are:

• Providing a forum for IPv6 discussions with global experts
• Providing training at the level and detail needed
• Having recordings available for those who cannot attend the live-session

This is just an illustration of the benefits that we have provided to the community.

Detailed numbers and break out of the number of attendees per country and organization will be provided at the ending report.  We will provide interim statistics in this status report.

Reflect on how your project addressed issues around gender equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Our team itself is diverse. We have an internal team of 6 people who are key to this project.  3 are women. 2 of the women reside in India.

Of the 2 men, 1 reside in India. One team member identifies as non-binary. Our team illustrates the global cooperation across gender, diversity and national lines without needing to say it. We prove it by our actions.

Reflect about activities that you struggle to implement during the period reported, along with processes and methods originally planned that might need adjustment to achieve your project objectives.

The APNIC region spans many time zones. Our core team is in India and the United States.  It is difficult to find a time that is suitable for all attendees. Having said that, this is complicated material.  It would be difficult for even knowledgeable participants to absorb everything the first time around.  Many people ask for the recordings so they can watch them again to see the structure around how they're composed of the spots they missed or did not understand the first time.

Motivated registrants from countries where the time zone is not conducive to live attendance, make it work for themselves. We received a number of emails after every session with people eager for the recordings. The trainers and core group also make ourselves available for questions by email. Quite a few people contact us to discuss various issues. This problem is the same as that experienced by the IETF. No time zone could be selected that would work for all countries. That said, this is an area that is still under active discussion at IIESoc to see if there are improvements that could be implemented.

We are considering setting up a group email for IPv6 subject matter experts. As organizations move into IPv6 deployment, this may become very useful.

General project administration, staffing, procurement, etc. especially those aspects contributing to the fulfillment of the project objectives as well as those that have delay project implementation.

Making payments outside of India was a struggle that we did not identify before.

Reflect on how has the project team strengthened its capacity and work towards sustainability during the project lifecycle, and how has your organization increased its capacity.

IIESoc is proud of its ability to deliver such a well-received program. This has strengthened the board with new members. Quite a few new engineers, in particular from NITK, have become a part of the core group.

Has the project allowed for a particular contribution to capacity building of women or marginalized social groups?

I think that women can see that there are a number of women in technical and project leader of this project.  Many women often have a real fear of participating in the tech world, especially in very complex areas, because they do not want to be the only woman in the room.  Our project is very open and inclusive. Women can see by our actions that we can have close, collaborative relationships with each other and the men in the group and work towards technical excellence.

Have you done anything different to provide administrative support for this project besides your “business as usual” processes and procedures? 

We are keeping better track of registrations and attendees.  We are providing summary reports and breakouts of attendees by organization and country.

Project Evaluation

To what extend the project achieved its objectives? What contribution to development did the project make? Is there evidence of positive impact?

We have over 300 registrations from individuals in the APNIC region for our training classes.  These come from over 150 unique organizations, including academia, industry, and government. Many more have downloaded the presentations or watched the recordings on YouTube (250+ views each video).

A list of organizations by country follows:

• ​​Bangladesh: Aamra Technologies Limited
• Bangladesh: American International University
• Bangladesh: Bangladesh Computer Council
• Bangladesh: BDIX
• Bangladesh: BGD e Gov CIRT
• Bangladesh: BOL
• Bangladesh: Cisco
• Bangladesh: Contessa Solutions
• Bangladesh: Digicon telecommunications Ltd
• Bangladesh: Drik ICT Ltd.
• Bangladesh: Fiber@Home Global Limited
• Bangladesh: Level3 Carrier Ltd (IIG)
• Bangladesh: NRD CYBERSECURITY
• Bangladesh: NYK Line Bangladesh Ltd
• Bangladesh: Synesis IT Limited
• Bangladesh: Race Online
• Bangladesh: Triangle Services LTD
• Bhutan: Tashi InfoComm Limited
• China: CERNET
• China: Huawei
• India: ABSPL
• India: ACM Chennai /IEEE
• India: Alumnus Software Limited
• India: Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
• India: Andhra Pradesh state Police
• India: Atria Convergence Technologies Ltd
• India: BBK DAV College for Women, Amritsar
• India: Bharat Institute of Technology
• India: Bharti Airtel Limited
• India: BSNL
• India: CCC
• India: CDAC
• India: Centre for Networked Intelligence - IISc
• India: CHARUSAT University
• India: CHRIST (Deemed to be University)
• India: Cisco
• India: CNI, IISc Bangalore
• India: COEP, Pune
• India: CSPIT Charusat
• India: Chitkara University
• India: Central University of Himachal Pradesh
• India: Himachal Pradesh Technical University
• India: CSIR - Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology
• India: Datasoft Comnet Private Limited
• India: DNA Infotel Private Limited
• India: Dr G R Damodaran College of Science
• India: DXC
• India: Electronics and Communication
• India: Engineering College Bikaner
• India: Ericsson
• India: Ernet India
• India: Esto Internet
• India: Extreme Networks
• India: Fastah
• India: Fusionnet Web Services Pvt. Ltd.
• India: GNarayanamma Institute of Technology and Science
• India: Graphite Networks
• India: GSSSS ULLANA
• India: Guavus a Thales Company
• India: Happiest minds
• India: Hathway Cable & Datacom Ltd
• India: HCL technologies
• India: HP Enterprises
• India: Hurricane Electric
• India: Huawei
• India: IBM
• India: IGH
• India: IIESoc
• India: IMMT and Agro Sciences
• India: Incedo A10 networks Pvt Ltd
• India: INFORMATICS INDIA
• India: Innobox Systems Pvt Ltd
• India: Instamojo Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
• India: Intel
• India: IP Infusion Software India Pvt. Ltd.
• India: IPR
• India: ISOC India Kolkata
• India: ISP
• India: Jawaharlal Nehru National College of Engineering, Shimoga
• India: Jd
• India: Jnn college of Engineering
• India: Juniper Networks
• India: KITS enterprises
• India: Lambton
• India: M.S.Ramaiah Institute of Technology
• India: Mavenir
• India: McAfee
• India: Microsoft
• India: Makaut
• India: Margo Networks
• India: National Informatics Centre
• India: National Institute of Technology Karnataka
• India: National Internet Exchange of India
• India: NavankurIT
• India: NetApp
• India: Netmagic Solutions Pvt Ltd
• India: NIC
• India: NMAM Institute of Technology
• India: NMAMIT, Nitte
• India: Nokia
• India: ONEOTT iNTERTAINMENT LTD
• India: Parametrique
• India: Paypal
• India: Power Grid Corporation of India limited
• India: Qualcomm
• India: Ramaiah institute of technology
• India: Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira
• India: Red Hat
• India: Reliance Jio
• India: Richerlink
• India: RJIL
• India: Rtbrick
• India: Samsung
• India: SBM COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
• India: Sense Connect IT
• India: Silver-Peak
• India: Siti Networks Ltd
• India: Shubham IoT
• India: Smartlink Solutions Pvt Ltd
• India: Solamalai College of Engineering
• India: Software Technology Parks of India
• India: Sree Saraswathi Thyagaraja College
• India: SRM
• India: STPI
• India: Tata Consultancy Services Limited
• India: Versa Networks
• India: VFISLK Global Service Private Limited
• India: VIN Technologies
• India: Vinayak Impex
• India: Vmware
• India: Vaagdevi Engineering College
• India: Zeta Suite
• Malaysia: Axiata
• Nepal: Broadlink network and communication pvt.ltd
• Nepal: Eastlink Technology Pvt. Ltd.
• Nepal: ISMT College
• Nepal: Worldlink Communications
• Nepal: Nepal REN
• Nepal: NT
• Nepal: NCell
• Pakistan: Transworld Enterprise Services
• Pakistan: COMSATS University Islamabad Attock campus
• Pakistan: Cyber internet services Pvt Ltd
• Papua New Guinea: University of Papua New Guinea
• Papua New Guinea: Laga Industries Limited
• Papua New Guinea: Department of Personnel Management
• Papua New Guinea: Barrick Gold Corporation
• Papua New Guinea: Seetokui
• Papua New Guinea: Divine Word University
• Papua New Guinea: Telikom PNG Limited
• Papua New Guinea: Papua New Guinea University of Technology
• Papua New Guinea: Computers And Internet Technology Service (CAITS)
• Papua New Guinea: Centre for Excellence in Information Technology (University of Papua New Guinea)
• Papua New Guinea: Digicel PNG Ltd
• Papua New Guinea: Fincorp
• Papua New Guinea: Adveem Enterprise Limited
• Papua New Guinea: Bank of Papua New Guinea
• Papua New Guinea: Port Moresby General Hospital
• Papua New Guinea: Mainland Holdings Limited (MHL)
• Philippines: University Computer Center UP Diliman
• Philippines: Conduent
• Sri Lanka: University of Colombo
• Sri Lanka: University of Moratuwa
• Sri Lanka: Faculty of Technology, University of Ruhuna
• Sri Lanka: LEARN
• Sri Lanka: Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna
• Thailand: Thai Name Server Co.,Ltd.
• Thailand: THNIC

This list does not include people who watched the YouTube channel.  We do not require registration for that thus do not track it.  But, hundreds of people have viewed the recordings.

Following organizations reached out to us for more collaborations and guidance towards IPv6 adoption -

ISOC Hyderabad Chapter, India

ACM Chennai Chapter, India

IEEE Manglalore Chapter, India

IEEE Chennai Chapter, India

InSig, India

To what extent the project delivered benefits/outcomes that support gender equality, diversity and inclusion?

Women from all over the world can see that there are a number of women technical and project leaders of this project.  Many women often have a real fear of participating in the tech world, especially in very complex areas, because they do not want to be the only woman in the room.  Our project is very open and inclusive.  Women can see by our actions that we can have close, collaborative relationships with each other and the men in the group and work towards technical excellence.

One of the project leader also identify as non-binary.

To what extent has the project lived to its potential for growth/further development?

People continue to sign up for our webinars and email us to get links to the past recordings.  This is happening by word-of-mouth.  Word-of-mouth is the best kind of marketing.

We also have started a project with NITK to work on IPv6 deployment on their 300 acre campus.  We will use this experience to work on the next phases of this IPv6 deployment project.

We have also had contact with the people who provide the backbone for the universities in the Himachal Pradesh province of India.  They have IPv6 enabled their backbone already but the universities are not converting to IPv6.  The folks who run the backbone passed on the registration to our webinars to their universities.  A number of people have signed up to get training.  We hope to use the template for IPv6 deployment for universities developed in the NITK collaboration for the universities in Himachal Pradesh.

As we indicated before we had an email exchange with one of the people from Papua New Guinea who indicated that with the Coral Sea Cable connecting Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands with Australia, they expect a lot of growth.  One thing they are thinking is that they may run out of IPv4 addresses!  Currently, no IPv6 is being offered by any ISP in PNG.  But, they wish to get trained up in preparation.   We will continue to follow their progress.

What were the most important findings and outputs of the project? What will be done with them?

The most important findings are:

People want training that does not assume a lot of background and gives many examples.

People are hungry for technical detail and explanation.

"If you build it, they will come."  That is, if you provide something of value, people will seek it out.

People like to have a forum for discussing their technical questions.  We get many questions both during and after the webinars.

We are hoping that providing a forum for support will be the catalyst for IPv6 deployment.  The folks at NITK had said that they had wanted to move to IPv6, but were not sure how to go forth.  They said that if IIESoc / INTC would help them, then they would start the transition. And, they started the migration process in November 2020. They attended our IPv6 webinars and demo sessions actively, and in parallel practiced those experiments in their campus network. In fact, one of their team members (Mohit P. Tahiliani) delivered a demo session on DHCPv6 which demonstrated how to install SLAAC and Stateful DHCPv6 servers. Subsequently, he demonstrated how to enable IPv6 in a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in Amazon Web Services (AWS) in one of our IPv6 webinars.

These experiences helped Mohit to present a lightning talk at APNIC 52 (https://conference.apnic.net/52/assets/files/APBS588/migrating-a-university-campus-network-to-ipv6-in-india-a-case-study.pdf) in which he discussed the motivation and challenges faced by the team at NITK Surathkal while migrating to IPv6 and also highlighted the need for the Universities to be IPv6-ready. In addition, he compiled an article in this regard which has been published in IEEE Region 10 Computer Society Newsletter (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qLVcGKKwgf8J531by2MO-I-DMSlYMyUi/view). Currently, the team at NITK Surathkal has finalized the address plan and are in the process of leasing IPv6 address block from the local Internet registry in India. Besides, Mohit is preparing a document outlining the steps involved in migrating University campus networks to IPv6 in India. .

We think the discussion forum and support is crucial to kick start IPv6 deployment.  People have IPv6 capable equipment. Often, they have an ISP who will provide IPv6 connectivity, they just do not know how to get started. They also feel that once they have started, they may run into problems and questions and will not know who to turn to.  There are people who offer consulting services for IPv6 deployment. Organizations could certainly hire them but we do not know the costs for this.

We will use this information for the next phases of this IPv6 project. We will also write APNIC blogs. If we succeed in enticing organizations to move to IPv6, then we will certainly publicize that in numerous forums.

What lessons can be derived that would be useful in improving future performance?

See Section on Recommendations and Use of Findings.

To what extend the project help build up the capacity of your institution or of the individuals involved?

The webinar helped IIESoc/INTC to establish itself as leaders in the IPv6 deployment training with practical knowledge and the institution to reach out to for help.

The lead for the project from NITK (Mohit P. Tahliani) has joined the board of IIESoc.  He has also said that he wishes his university to start teaching IPv6. Two of his students have joined a collaborative team with some of the people from this IPv6 deployment team (Nalini and Mike) as well as a cryptographer from Italy to co-author two Internet Drafts for the IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) Working Group.

Ameya Neeraj Despande, Mohit’s student from NITK Surathkal attended IETF 113 in-person at Vienna, Austria, and along with other authors, presented the work being done on the Internet Draft (https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/113/materials/minutes-113-ippm-00). He participated in the IETF Hackathon 113 (https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/113hackathon) as well, and worked towards the implementation of the Internet Draft. The primary purpose for the in person visit to IETF 113 was to make an adoption call for the proposed Internet draft in the IPPM Working Group. The overall presentation of the Internet Draft went well; several attendees showed interest in this work, and supported the adoption of this Internet Draft. Several people participated in the Hackathon as well. The chairs of the IPPM Working Group indicated that they would be doing the adoption call soon. The fact that the authors of this Internet Draft went to the IETF in person made a real difference in how this Internet Draft will proceed and get adopted. Ameya was also the only in-person attendant from India.

Were certain aspects of project design, management and implementation particularly important to the degree of success of the project?

The project management skills of Dhruv Dhody & Nalini Elkins were essential to keeping the team together and on track. We meet regularly. We have a clear agenda. People know what they are to do. Having an organization and folks that are working on the IPv6 deployment (in their organizations) as part of the project also helped with framing the right set of questions and lab demos.

Indicators	Baseline	Project activities related to indicator	Outputs and outcomes	Status
How do you measure project progress, linked to the your objectives and the information reported on the Implementation and Dissemination sections of this report.	Refers to the initial situation when the projects haven’t started yet, and the results and effects are not visible over the beneficiary population.	Refer to how the project has been advancing in achieving the indicator at the moment the report is presented. Please include dates.	We understand change is part of implementing a project. It is very important to document the decision making process behind changes that affect project implementation in relation with the proposal that was originally approved.	Indicate the dates when the activity was started. Is the activity ongoing or has been completed? If it has been completed add the completion dates.
Number of seperate enterprises/organization reached via this project	IIESoc was very vendor focused, with participation from Juniper, Huawei, Ciscos of the world	Refer communication strategy	Number of seperate enterprises/organization that registered for our webinars	In APNIC Region: 141; Total: 271
Number of Registrations for the IPv6 webinar series	n/a	Refer Project Implementation	Number of Registrations for the IPv6 webinar series	In APNIC Region: 271; Total: 743

Gender Equality and Inclusion

In the execution of this project, we have a good record of gender equality and inclusion-

• This project is co-led by Nalini. She is also the main trainer for the classes.
• We have 2 women as part of the core team that meets weekly - Praneet Kaur (inseego) and Priyanka Sinha (TCS). They have been an integral part of the core team. Thus, we have equal representation for sexes in our project team (reaching gender equality)
• Apart from the project team,
  • Shwetha Bhandari has been lending her IPv6 expertise in various aspects such as setting up IPv6 Lab.
  • IIESoc has 2 women as board members and 1 as an advisory member.  The partner organization INTC has 3 women as board members.
• As with most tech initiatives, we still have a long way to go to reach equal participation in the webinars and labs. This is indicative of the imbalance in the industry in general and the enterprise tech sector in particular.
  • Hoping to lead by example and showcasing strong leadership in project implementation to inspire more participation.
• Further, the co-lead of the project is also from the queer community.

Project Communication Strategy

We used the following communication techniques to reach the target audience of enterprises, universities, government agencies, and anyone interested in IPv6 deployment with good reach and continuous engagement:

• Emails - Both IIESoc and INTC have a substantial email list based on the past events that were used to reach out to potential attendees. Regular reminders before each class/lab are sent and engagement is maintained with the attendees.
• Social Media - Used IIESoc social media presence on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook. IIESoc also has a big WhatsApp group, which was used for regular updates.
• Mailing List - Regular updates on IETF-India, INNOG, SANOG, APNIC-talk mailing list
• University Coordinators - Two university coordinators were identified to evangelize the effort with university partners, who did a good job in connecting us to the universities.
• Partnerships - Help from ISOC Rural SIG, VSIG, APNIC foundation to further reach out
• Word of mouth - Nothing can replace word of mouth and in our case that has been substantial. We have seen cases where our email was forwarded across the organizations as direct recommendations for more to attend.
• Survey - We have done surveys of the enterprises and universities to learn more about their IPv6 deployment journey
• Direct email for queries - We have received questions, queries, a plea for help from all over -- from India, Papa New Genie, Oman to just name a few. This openness and interactions provide opportunities for frank discussions outside of the structure of class/labs.
• Open Discussion on IPv6 deployment - We set up a monthly zoom call for anyone with IPv6 deployment questions to attend and socialize with other like-minded individuals. We could hear deployment experience, fear, queries and try to make good connections.
• Recordings and Foils - Recordings and foils of the classes and labs are made readily available on the website and emails. A good number of offline views are observed by those who were not able to attend live.

Our goal of phase 1 has been to build a strong foundation and community for further work on IPv6 deployment at the enterprises. Our communication strategy was aligned to that. We would be further working towards future phases and build on the communication strategy to align more towards future phases.

Based on the last registration numbers, registrations count per continent showcasing good diversity:

• Asia: 271
• North America: 330
• Africa: 44
• South America: 6
• Europe: 38
• Oceania: 26
• Middle East: 28
• Total nonprofit attendees: 90
• Total academic attendees: 78
• Total military attendees: 6
• Total govt. attendees: 90

Planning for timing is a struggle. We optimized for the Indian region where the preference was for a weekday late evening (after work), since our presenters were in the US and we had good participation from the American region, we were not able to pick a time more convenient for the rest of Asia Pacific region. Some things to improve and build on in the future. Further, we would like to reach the real game-changers at the enterprise network, who would play a major influence within their organization as they embark on the IPv6 journey.

The multi-pronged communication strategy seemed to work and we did get registrations at a high number. We suggest a similar communication strategy be replicated.

Recommendations and Use of Findings

Recommendations

• Hands-on Labs along with classes are very useful for operations
• Providing YouTube recordings and foils after each session is useful
• Multi-pronged communication strategy
• The ability for free form discussion on emails, other calls, outside of classes
• Working with universities as a case study for IPv6 deployment
• Subject Matter Experts who could answer real-world IPv6 deployment issues
• Building an IPv6 community, linking new bees and old-timers
• IPv6 deployment has taught us that this is a very long process and patience is key, the results will take time

Recommendations to ISIF Asia Secretariat

• Touch base more often to make sure everyone is in sync

Informed decision-making

• This is a long process, and we must commit to this long-term. We need to make sure we continue with this work over many years and refine our vision and outputs
• Initially, we thought govt would be key targets; but realized universities are a fertile ground to deploy IPv6. They can also be a perfect partner for the further development of deployment-template, guidelines, deeper research in this area.
• Surveys were used extensively to also learn the real pain points of the enterprise

This information is useful for any organizations working towards IPv6 training and deployment - APNIC Foundation, INTC, IIESoc, ARIN, RIPE, Internet Society, etc could further share best practices and collaborate more in the future.

In-person participation in the IETF is required for new members willing to participate, support for IETF participation is needed for the region.

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