“All companies in the IP space—firewall and intrusion-detection vendors, for example—are making their products V6-compatible,” Sekelsky says, “but with some uncertainties about meeting the specifics. It’s important for agencies to insist on interoperability testing and figure out how to do their tech refreshment under schedule contracts. They may need some programmatic shifts.”

Walt Grabowski, SI International’s senior director of network integration, says, “The protocol change at the bit level has many ramifications for routers, edge networks, encryption and applications, and it needs coordination across all the defense agencies. Our key DOD customers are doing significant hands-on work.”

Like DOD’s Strance and Command Information’s Patterson, the SI International officials believe most of the transition can be paid for with tech refreshment clauses under applicable contracts.

As for IPv6 training, Grabowski says, “the CIOs down through the program managers need it. Systems administrators and network operators need a lot more so they can troubleshoot under the new scheme.”

Sekelsky adds, “As a general rule, any staff member involved with the IP infrastructure under the government’s $64 billion IT budget line will need some training.” That includes telecommunications staff, because one existing technology that IPv6 will profoundly advance is voice-over-IP telephony. Existing VOIP phones can be physically moved around on an organization’s network without changing numbers. V6 will make them even more portable and secure. “We’re just beginning to scratch the surface of video, data and sensors,” he says. “Fax machines and cell phones forced the telephone world to generate lots of new area codes. Now all sorts of other information elements will become IP-addressable.”

Security risks will show up as these new things are introduced, Grabowski predicts, “like the risks in changing from gasoline vehicles to hydrogen-powered ones. The old and the new security protections will be mixed for some time to come in a dual-mode environment. You’ll wonder what’s running what. The key thing for architects and managers to remember is that there will be chunks of V6 in a V4 world.”

Defense remains ahead of the civilian agencies in both planning and implementation, he believes, “because DOD has put resources behind V6 longer and made it clear that there will be more resources.”

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