Feds: We will meet June IPv6 deadline

Federal government officials are confident they will meet a June 30 deadline to support IPv6 on their backbone networks, but they see challenges ahead in transitioning their production networks to this long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol. Challenges cited by federal IPv6 leaders include the lack of IPv6-enabled security devices and software applications available in the commercial marketplace as well as budgetary constraints and training hurdles. IPv6 represents a major upgrade to the Internet. It replaces the current version of the Internet Protocol, known as IPv4, with a new and improved version that features vastly more IP addresses along with built-in security and network management enhancements. The Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet's premier standards-setting body, created IPv6 in 1995. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a requirement in 2005 that all U.S. federal agencies must be capable of passing IPv6 packets on their backbone networks by June 30, 2008.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/02/Feds-will-meet-June-IPv6-deadl...