Official Indifference to IPv6 Costs U.S. Business, Forum Hears
Federal agencies are beefing up IPv6 transition efforts to meet a June Office of Management and Budget deadline (WID Nov 30 p3), but other nations still run far ahead, and vendors are following the money, an E-Gov Institute IPv6 forum heard Wednesday. “This is an international competition,” and the U.S. must “win this battle,” said Gerald Lepisko, information technology specialist with the IRS planning and policy division. But to get agencies to respond at all, vendors must tailor their approaches with care, he said.
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China itself will enter the IPv6 market as an unofficial vendor, Lepisko said, citing that country’s bid for a Cisco competitor. “The Chinese are building the whole Olympics around” IPv6, he said. If IPv6-ready gear can be made for half the cost in China, “where do you think [U.S. vendors are] going to be in two to five years?” he added. Frank Cuccias, principal engineer in Lockheed Martin’s IPv6 Center of Excellence, said China may have an edge on IPv6 “practice” but not in “determination.” He told vendors that the IPv6 rollout will take decades. Besides India, another country leading in adoption is Japan, where 22 universities are connected to each other using IPv6, Lepisko said.
The IRS finished its IPv6 transition in September to beat the start of tax season in late December, Lepisko said. The hardest part of the transition was getting approval for the project, which is an unfunded mandate, he said. “Our institutional processes are very, very tight” and leaders were “extremely leery,” not even knowing what IPv4 is. Once his group set up a test lab and resolved security issues involving IPv4 compatibility, the project grew less complex, Lepisko said. They're now working with developers on “baselining” new applications, checking to see whether IPv4 settings need tweaking for IPv6. “We're going to create a clamor where everybody’s going to want” IPv6-only applications and secure additional agency funding, he said. Lepisko offered his team’s documentation to all government officials attending the event, calling it especially important for “one-man band” IPv6 leaders.
“We tried to involve everybody from day one” at the Department of Veterans Affairs, with 100-plus participants joining in within a year of the project’s 2005 start date, said IPv6 Transition Manager Steven Pirzchalski. The group organized into training, transition, security and strategy subgroups. Participants created a “high definition awareness video” sent to CIOs at all VA facilities, which “gave us a little buzz,” he said. They gave ad hoc updates to the VA secretary and other high-level officials, and produced the first agency-written IPv6 training curriculum for middle management, Pirzchalski said. His group is working on identity management and mobility issues in IPv6, and applying the protocol to its Internet2-connected facilities.
Most agency staff still know little of IPv6, said moderator Nick Wakeman, editor of Washington Technology, citing his publication’s surveys. For Lepisko’s team, the next phrase is seeking broader IPv6 interest from IRS managers, Lepisko said. Due to the one-year IRS budget cycle, managers continually ask him what IPv6 installation will do for them in the coming year -- basically, nothing, he said. At the VA, an IPv6 query appears on a questionnaire managers must complete on new projects, Pirzchalski said.
A vendor on hand said he had a hard time getting agencies to look at his small company’s IPv6 translation device, which he said sells briskly abroad. The VA has 1,300 CIOs around the U.S. with varying IPv6 needs, but as the agency implements a centralized information technology effort (WID Sept 20 p1), vendors should find it easier to get attention if they target “decision-makers,” Pirzchalski said. He recommended bidding for Networx contracts to get a foot in the door. Lepisko said vendors regularly beg for hour-long meetings, so he wants to know right away how a product is different and better. To get to his desk, it’s usually more productive to go through a large vendor like Cisco, Juniper or AT&T, he said. Cuccias urged that the vendor talk to “lead system integrators” at major contractors such as Lockheed, Boeing and GE, which regularly examine products and services from others.
But it may be years before agencies require networking and telecom vendors to use IPv6. Pirzchalski said the VA has asked Verizon and Sprint for a “game plan” on full upgrades to IPv6. Lepisko said it’s too early to mandate IPv6 readiness for IRS vendors, but “I can’t imagine us not saying, ‘Hey guys, it’s been out there five or six years,'” so it’s time to upgrade.