AI vastly reduced stress of IPv6 migrations in experiment

"The university's CIO Mukhammad Andri Setiawan, who also teaches at its Department of Informatics, discussed the experiments on Tuesday at the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies (APRICOT) in Jakarta, Indonesia. Setiawan explained that the university created a tool called "Net AI Copilot" that converts existing IPv4 implementations to dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 configurations and also generates ready-to-run Ansible playbooks to make the move a reality. The tool includes configuration validation checks and automatic rollback triggers to help prevent errors."

"The CIO and his team sought to answer three questions: Does generative AI reduce the cognitive workload experienced by network engineers during the complex IPv6 renumbering process? How does AI-assisted configuration compare to traditional manual methods in terms of error rates and time-on-task efficiency? Do technical improvements from AI tools directly translate into organizational readiness for broader IPv6 adoption?"

"Setiawan told The Register investigating cognitive load was important because some network engineers find 128-bit IPv6 addresses harder to work with than the dotted quads of IPv4. Some are therefore reluctant to work on migrations and find them tiring. The CIO felt testing for organizational readiness was a worthy line of inquiry to see if it is a factor in the slow pace of IPv6 adoption."

Universitas Islam conducted experiments showing generative AI greatly reduces cognitive load for network professionals during IPv4 to IPv6 migrations. A tool called Net AI Copilot converts IPv4 implementations to dual-stack IPv4/IPv6, generates ready-to-run Ansible playbooks, and includes configuration validation checks plus automatic rollback triggers to prevent errors. Experiments measured cognitive workload, compared AI-assisted configuration to manual methods for error rates and time efficiency, and evaluated whether technical improvements translate into organizational readiness for IPv6 adoption. A group of seven experienced network engineers tested configurations manually and with AI assistance and reported a 65% reduction in cognitive load when using AI. Despite technical gains, organizational readiness for both AI tools and widespread IPv6 adoption remains limited.

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