Many readers may be awaiting the third edition of IPv6 Essentials. The event on February 3, 2011, when the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) finally announced the depletion of the global IPv4 address pool changed the world. People seemed to wake up and realize it was high time to start planning for IPv6. But where to start?

So we decided to wait to update IPv6 Essentials (since it is really not that outdated) and instead provide a book to help with this planning. After all, before you need the bits and bytes of the protocol, you need to do some planning.

In this book, I try to put everything I have learned in more than 10 years of studying, working, playing, teaching, and consulting with IPv6 at your disposal—everything that is relevant to help you understand what it takes to plan the integration of IPv6. The book is basically a summary of all the answers to the most frequent questions I get when talking with customers. And I hope it also makes you feel a little enthusiastic about the opportunities that IPv6 offers. So, with that, I wish you a good read and lots of fun learning about and planning for IPv6.