Transition to IPv6 Must be Underway by Late 2012, Says Kundra
Federal agencies must upgrade their public servers and services such as e-mail to use IPv6 by the end of FY 2012, while maintaining their ability to run IPv4 for the foreseeable future, said U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra. His Tuesday Office of Management and Budget memo for federal CIOs contained steps and deadlines for adoption. Agencies will have an easy time switching if they roll it out over time, said speakers at a Tuesday IPv6 forum in Washington.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The memo gives agencies a timeline with milestones for using IPv6, according to a copy Kundra gave us at the forum. All public/external-facing servers and services, including Web, e-mail, DNS and ISP services must use IPv6 by Sept. 30, 2012, it said. Agencies must also upgrade internal client applications that communicate with public Internet servers and supporting enterprise networks so they use IPv6 by Sept. 30, 2014. Every federal agency must designate an IPv6 transition manager by Oct. 30, 2010, the memo said. The manager will lead agency IPv6 transition activities and act as liaison with the overall federal IPv6 program. Agencies also will ensure their procurements of networked IT comply with Federal Acquisiton Regulation requirements for use of the USGv6 Profile and Test Program for the completeness and quality of their IPv6 activities, it said.
OMB will work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to implement the USGv6 Profile and Testing Program, the memo said. The Federal IPv6 Task Force also will meet with agencies to share best practices and explain the federal government’s IPv6 direction. Deploying IPv6 will help the U.S. government expand key IT modernization initiatives such as cloud computing, broadband upgrades and SmartGrid, which need a robust and scalable Internet network, said the memo. IPv6 also will simplify federal Internet services and make them more transparent by eliminating the need to rely on network address translation technologies and boost the security of federal network communications, it said. IPv6 will give federal agencies an integrated networking platform to accommodate future expansion of Internet-based services, it said.
Kundra discussed the benefits of IPv6 and tips for adopting it, with a panel of federal managers at a Tuesday NTIA forum. Federal managers will have an easier transition if they sell it to their staff as an equipment upgrade replacing old, outdated machines, said Department of Energy Acting Associate CIO Pete Tseronis, who chairs the U.S. IPv6 Task Force. Chief acquisition officers and chief financial officers are equally important to promoting IPv6 deployment at an agency, he said. “You must get the right people in the room to say what is the state of our infrastructure, what is our strategy for going forward?”
Staffers at the Department of Defense thought adopting IPv6 would be difficult, but a secret to a smooth transition is rolling it out over time, said the Department of Defense’s Ron Broersma, chief engineer of the Defense Research and Engineering Network. Federal managers should stress business continuity as a major advantage for switching, said Doug Montgomery, NIST manager, Internet & Scalable Systems Metrology Group. IPv6 brings almost unlimited Internet addresses, a boost for innovation, he said, giving agencies a long-term strategic benefit for switching.