Time Running Out for First IPv6 Transition Phase, Leaders Say

Agency officials have a hard time explaining the driving factors for IPv6 transition, such as improved security, said Mark Evans, Navy IPv6 transition lead. The absence of supplemental funding for transition complicates matters: “How do we do this essentially for free?” IPv6 makes the biggest difference now at the “tactical edge,” a powerful reason for the armed forces to lead the transition, but that area “is in the most flux… In a year the standards could change,” Evans said: “We could be stuck rebuying a lot of hardware.” The Defense Dept. also is reluctant to buy the first wave of IPv6-ready equipment before inevitable bugs are worked out. Agencies need to pressure vendors and standards groups to pick up the pace of their work so agencies won’t be stuck, Evans added.

Other agencies besides DoD are making small progress, Quinn said. Interior recently consolidated 13 wireless LANs into a single network, which will make IPv6 transition and configuration much easier, he said. Different teams within the agency have started transition discussions. With 507 million acres under his agency’s purview, Interior is considering how to implement remote reporting into actual land. A series of wildfires in San Diego in 2003 -- to which 1,400 different organizations with different communications technologies were dispatched -- made Interior realize they also needed more advanced communications abilities, which IPv6 can address, Quinn said.

The advantages of IPv6 also hold perils for officials unfamiliar with its workings, Cyber Security Industry Alliance Exec. Dir. Paul Kurtz said: It’s the first such protocol transition, and there’s no rulebook. For 10-20 years there will be “extended coexistence” of both IPv4 and IPv6, which makes security integration confusing, Kurtz said. Some administrators don’t know their new equipment has IPv6 capabilities, and may fail to configure them properly against attack. Applications closely tied to IPv4 may not work properly in an IPv6 environment -- which could have dangerous effects on encryption, firewall and auditing tools, he added.

“It’s a very strange feeling for us… to watch the progress and penetration [of IPv6] outside the United States,” said Juniper Senior Dir.-Consulting Engineering & Solutions Rod Murchison. He travels regularly to Europe and Asia for IPv6 projects, where deployment isn’t even an issue. Two years after Juniper jumped into IPv6 solutions, its biggest full-run deployments are abroad: “It’s troubling to see how far we [the U.S.] have to go from a competitive standpoint,” Murchison said.

The advanced state of IPv6 activity abroad can be turned around for U.S. benefit: “We do have an international context” to study the pitfalls of transition, Kurtz said: “We can learn a lot by watching what happens especially with very large enterprises overseas.” IPv6 Summit Chmn. Alex Lightman rattled off examples of how IPv6 has been integrated into daily life in other countries. Intelligent transportation systems in Japan help over a 1,000 taxis weave through traffic and find the best route to their destinations using embedded IPv6 systems. The same systems have helped the Japanese save 30% in building operation costs by regulating heating and cooling, among other processes, Lightman said. Embedding IPv6 in consumer electronics will let them autoconfigure when networked together, which would dampen the 1/3 of devices returned because of configuration hassles. Such benefits aren’t make-or-break advantages for agencies, but they'll make administrative duties easier, he added. -- Greg Piper

IPv6 Notebook

Though the Defense Dept. leads govt. progress on IPv6 transition, it’s accomplishments haven’t always been easy for other agencies to emulate, OMB Chief-Information Policy Glenn Schlarman said Thurs. at the U.S. IPv6 Summit. OMB told agencies in mid-Nov. to start their push to transition, with June 2008 the target for a fully IPv6- ready infrastructure. “Not everybody is going to hit the target,” but those that lag will “place themselves at a disadvantage,” with IPv6 consuming energy needed on other matters, Schlarman said. Some risks and benefits won’t be known until transition is well under way, he added. Asked if OMB would provide a forum for interagency exchanges on the transition, Schlarman said an infrastructure committee at OMB’s CIO office is the “locus” for such talks, which could start as early as today (Fri.). He praised DoD, saying OMB “plagiarizes” its progress, but added DoD’s specialties, such as networked combat, “aren’t directly transferable” to other agencies. “We need a Rosetta stone to translate what DoD is doing into a language and process” for other agencies. Agency progress will spur industry to “take the plunge” and build applications using IPv6, like smart transportation systems or even RFID tags in bedpans: “Who knows what they are?” Schlarman said. Agency efforts will “help [domestic] industry maintain its competitive lead… we won’t see every application moving offshore,” he said. Asked if the IPv6 shift is an e-gov initiative, Schlarman said it isn’t formally, “but it underpins everything we're doing” to make govt. more efficient through the Internet. Unfunded mandates for agency transition is a concern, Schlarman said in response to a question, terming it a “technology refresh issue” handled in existing budgets. New purchases are generally IPv6-ready, but true funding trouble will emerge when applications like a smart transportation program are build to use IPv6, he said.

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The transition to IPv6 is essential to the Defense Dept.’s concept of network-centric warfare, or “netcentricity,” DoD officials told the U.S. IPv6 Summit Thurs. “Our nation is engaged in… a long war against a radical Islamist ideology” that will use similar technology to attack and disrupt U.S. assets and operations, said Joint Chiefs Vice Chmn. Edmund Giambastiani. Netcentricity means operating remotely “rather than massing [battlefield] forces,” leading to “less or hopefully no collateral damage.” The size and diversity of the armed forces requires “very high-level horizontal and vertical collaboration” among military staff, and the built-in end-to-end security, efficient routing and mobility of IPv6 is an “essential enabler” of netcentricity, Giambastiani said. But he cautioned the transition is only part of DoD’s efforts with technology like GPS and RFID to create “pervasive knowledge” and “semantic languages” that simplify real-time decision- making for commanders and their staffs. “Everybody was doing things by manually filling spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides,” when IPv6 capabilities could automate those tasks, he said. Asked by a military captain in the audience and involved with IPv6 whether “doctrine” -- not technology or money -- was hampering rollout at DoD, Giambastiani said it involved the difficulty of getting military groups to work together. Why the federal govt. has no “czar” for IPv6 transition, and whether DoD can be considered just one or “the” leader in govt. transition, was also raised in questions. Giambastiani responded that his and other agencies had “a fine line” to walk in requiring standards without real-world testing among vendor partners: “Until we get that blend of what’s doable, along with what we need for transport, addressing… it’s very difficult to go out and set a standard.” DoD can set “stretch goals, but “we're not in an unlimited environment” of time and money, Giambastiani said. Such goals are “frankly what we hope all you folks out there are working on.” Dennis Moran, vice dir.-C4 Systems at the Joint Chiefs, said IPv6 is “worth its weight in gold… only if it brings operational capability.” DoD is “wrestling” with how to make a business case for the transition: “You can’t just have simple standards that demand implementation,” but rather set “key performance parameters” that staff can meet. Asked why even in DoD seemed to show little enthusiasm for IPv6 transition, Giambastiani said the agency’s size was a factor: “It takes time to move through this.” DoD staff are explaining the benefits of transition “from a command & control perspective,” and by appealing to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance concerns, he said.