Special IPv6 report | The promise of opportunities

Seconds count when it comes to warning people aboutan earthquake. Just a few moments can be the differencebetween being at risk in a dangerous area ormaking it to a safe shelter. NTT America developed anIPv6 Internet-based Earthquake Early WarningSystem that warns people in Japan of imminent earthquakes.Similar to the U.S. Emergency Alert System, it alertspeople via fixed, mobile and wireless IPv6-enabled devices. Ittells users what the scale of the earthquake will be and when itwill strike.One of the great promises of the new Internet protocol, IPv6,is the ability to assign IP address to just about anything. The protocolalso makes it easier to quickly create ad hoc networks that couldbenefit an array of applications like NTT's earthquake alert system.The promise of new and improved applications that take advantageof IPv6 led to the federal government's adoption of the protocol.An Office of Management and Budget mandate requires allgovernment agencies to make their core networks IPv6-capable byJune. There are no IPv6 mandates for civilian agencies after thedeadline, but a number of systems integrators and network andapplication providers expect agencies to slowly start moving to theprotocol once their networks can run it.Opportunities remain to help agencies meet the June deadline,say information technology company officials. And the opportunitiesaround IPv6 will continue to grow as new applications aredeveloped.To comply with the deadline, agenciesmust show they can move IPv6 packetsacross their core networks."That is a pretty straightforwardrequirement," said Walt Grabowski,vice president of marketing at SIInternational Inc. "So if I'm an agencyright now, I'm looking to demonstratesomething that is almost at the basisof IPv6."Several other IT company officialsagreed with Grabowski that agenciesare ready for the basic OMB mandate."All of our customers are going tomeet the deadline," said Paul Girardi,director of engineering at AT&TGovernment Solutions. "They havedifferent plans and objectives, butnonetheless, they're ready to go."The top makers of core networkdevices, such as routers and switches,tend to be on the cutting edge of IPv6technology, experts say. Integrators andagencies that have investedin IPv6 equipmentshould not worry aboutfuture requirements."If an agency hasthought about the Junedeadline and they'vedone some upgrades oradded equipment thatprovides basic IPv6services, then they should be good to go,"Grabowski said.AT&T is transitioning its customers to thenew networks and setting up testing environmentsto help federal IT employees get comfortablewith IPv6."We have a two-prong attack. We need to haveand be able to offer an IPv6 service that makesup the core for these agencies," Girardi said."So the first thing we've been doing is rollingout an IPv6 service, the networking infrastructureback end that supports IPv6 packets."After establishing anIPv6-capable network,agencies will have toadhere to a profile beingdeveloped by the NationalInstitute of Standards andTechnology."The profile is a muchricher description of what IPv6 means andwhat a system that fully supports IPv6 shouldbe capable of doing," Grabowski said. "So theprofile is looking further into the future. Theprofile is very important to the developers ofsystems and the manufacturers of systems asthey make determinations regarding whatshould be in a piece of hardware or a piece ofsoftware."The Defense Department has its own basicIPv6 profile, which NIST is using as input forits profile. Industry officials want NIST toreconcile its profile with DOD's."In general, agencies are going to getthrough the June 2008 deadline, andthen it's going to be a business-casedecision that leads them to turning onIPv6 and eventually taking advantageof it," said Alan Sekelsky, director of IPengineering at SI International.Without deadlines, each agency willlook at its business needs, refresh cyclesand budgets to determine the extent towhich it will enable IPv6. It is uncertainwhen applications enticing enough tolure government will be developed.One of the biggest benefits of IPv6 isexpected to be peer-to-peer capabilitiesthat will make it easy for devices, sensorsand other pieces of equipment totalk to one another."How near in the future [will that]be available? We just don't knowbecause until everybody else is on IPv6,it won't be effective," said WilliamClark, CA Inc.'s public sector chief technologyofficer. "If I do a peer-to-peer IPv6application and 90 percent of the worldcan't see me, then I don't have a marketnecessarily for that application."In the short term, systems integrators shouldfocus on infrastructure management as agenciesmove to IPv6. Agencies will be forced tosupport today's protocol, IPv4, and IPv6 foryears via so-called dual-stack networks."Integrators will need to make sure thatgovernment departments and agencies runningin a dual-stack environment aren'ttripping over protocols," said Allan Sontra,CA's public-sector technology specialist.If, for example, a 10 megabit circuit is90 percent full with IPv4 traffic, networkadministrators need to protect that. If a newIPv6 application tries to use 50 percent of thesame network, there will be problems, he said.Most agencies don't have a lot of operationalexperience with IPv6. Many are still doing labwork to ensure they understand how to managethat type of network. Services aimed athelping agencies run both protocols could be fruitful for contractors, said TimLeMaster, director of systems engineeringat Juniper Networks.So agency operators and networkengineers will have to troubleshoot,operate and maintain a dual stackfor a number of years.The systems integrator communitymust also ensure that as IPv6 isdeployed, it doesn't introduce newsecurity exposures. IPv6 makes iteasy for every device to be visibleon a network, but that is not alwayswise from a security perspective."That introduces some new andinteresting security concerns,"Sontra said. "We have customersthat want to make sure devices theydon't want the rest of the world tosee are indeed hidden from view."The Defense Research andEngineering office is among themany DOD organizations that haveinvested heavily in IPv6. "They'vedone some analysis on how to managea dual stack and the impactof that," LeMaster said. "Theyhaven't found dual stack to bemuch more challenging than a singleIPv4 network."Network backbones like DefenseResearch and Engineering's willenable the services and applicationsIPv6 will offer. The next wave ofwork will be on those applicationsand services."It's hard to create IPv6 applicationsif the infrastructure doesn'tsupport them, so this is laying thefoundation," LeMaster said. "A lot ofapplications will come into existenceover the next five years for things wehaven't really thought yet."