U.S. government IPv6 testing must go on

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: August 21, 2005 8:35:09 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] U.S. government IPv6 testing must go on
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com


U.S. government IPv6 testing must go on
Defense Department testing next-generation protocol to meet 2008  
compatibility target
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
August 19, 2005
<http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/19/HNipv6testing_1.html? 
source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/19/ 
HNipv6testing_1.html>
WASHINGTON -- Normally, August in the Washington, D.C., area is a  
time for many workers to take vacation and escape the near-tropical  
conditions. But the parking lot outside a Northern Virginia facility  
operated by the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Information  
Systems Agency (DISA) was filled Wednesday morning.

The work of DISA, with the job of creating, acquiring and testing  
technology equipment for the Defense Department, must continue  
through the sweltering August weather. In one of the DISA building's  
lab areas, more than a dozen Defense Department contractors were  
subjecting hardware products to a variety of tests.

Among the pressing matters in one of several testing labs at DISA was  
testing of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), the next generation of  
protocol that allows computers to communicate over the Internet. The  
Defense Department has set 2008 as a target for making its computer  
systems compatible with IPv6, although the agency had formerly  
mandated IPv6 compatibility by then. Even though the target is no  
longer a mandate, testing IPv6 remains an important priority.

John Mealey III, a systems engineer with DISA contractor Spirent  
Federal, was overseeing a number of tests Wednesday, including an  
IPv6 router conformance test. Spirent’s IPv6 products also test  
performance and functionality and validate interoperability of dual  
IPv4/IPv6 devices and networks.

"Our equipment tests and verifies what the manufacturer says it  
does," Mealey said. "We're just trying to see if the equipment works  
as advertised."

The DISA lab where IPv6 is tested includes rows and rows of server  
racks, filled servers, firewall appliances, telecommunications  
switches, and other equipment. Boxes of loose networking cable sit in  
corners, on one desk sat more than a half-dozen used phones. The lab,  
with about $70 million worth of hardware in it, was packed with  
equipment, including Dell (Profile, Products, Articles) servers and  
Sun Microsystems (Profile, Products, Articles) workstations. In one  
section of the lab, a worker had a PC set up on a large networking  
cable spool.

Spirent Federal, a spin-off of a U.K. performance testing vendor,  
announced in October 2003 it would be the only test equipment vendor  
to help the Defense Department test the first phase of its IPv6 roll- 
out. DISA uses a variety of Spirent testing equipment in its labs,  
including its Adtech AX/4000 appliance, which runs a suite of IPv6  
tests.

Spirent Federal, formed four years ago, focuses on the U.S. defense  
and intelligence agencies, said Steve Naylor, director of Broadband  
East for the spin-off. "That's mission critical networking," he  
added. "If their networks don't work, people die."

[snip]
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>



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