Migrate & Monetize IPv4

Project Complexities and Processes

With over 4000 employees and over $1 Billion annual earnings, Maritz embarked on a multiyear strategy to exit our private data centers in favor of public cloud hyperscalers. In doing so we were able to consolidate our privately owned IPv4 addresses and transition to IPv4 offered by the public cloud providers. This allowed us to create a strategy around how we would monetize a portion of our unused IPv4 address space.

A long history of private data center hosting meant that we had challenges understanding the scope and usage of some of our IPv4 address space. This required coordination with internal stakeholders, network teams, months of research and discovery to clearly understand our requirements and IPv4 usage characteristics. Then we created a multi-year plan to readdress and consolidate IPv4 addresses, while planning to move to our cloud environment.

IPv4 Monetization Strategy and Support

We relied on ARIN to identify Brander Group as a reputable IPv4 facilitator. Brander’s team had demonstrated the experience to support us, find qualified buyers, while fully managing and guiding us through the IPv4 sales process. Brander Group and our internal team worked closely together to ensure we clearly understood the IPv4 transfer process and they provided us step-by-step instructions to ensure a seamless transfer and sale. We relied on their research and data to determine a fair sales price based on market conditions. We had several questions about how to interact with ARIN during the process, the required fees, and the escrow process to ensure our accounting resources were comfortable with the transaction. All these concerns were addressed, and Brander Group functioned as a great partner throughout the project. We continue to work with their team for subsequent IPv4 sales.

Outcome and Utilization of Funds

The IPv4 strategy, readdressing and consolidation project was a huge success! The IPv4 sales generated a substantial profit for our organization. A great strategic win for the department and the company. We typically operate as a cost center in our organization so the ability to add to our bottom line was a great change of pace. We utilized the funds to continue our cloud journey by supporting projects to modernize our custom application architectures.