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DOT: Leading the IPv6 Initiative
As access to the Internet increases over time, the number of available Internet addresses slowly decreases. The current standard internet protocol (IPv4) was established at the creation of the Internet and provided the capacity for more than four billion Internet addresses. However, even this massive capacity is not enough to ensure unlimited address availability. The Department of Transportation Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) is taking the lead in technological innovation by preempting the inevitable scarcity of IP address availability and ensuring continued accessibility and flexibility for DOT websites. DOT is adapting to the new protocol for Internet addresses, known as IPv6, which will make more than 340 undecillion Internet addresses available—an undecillion is 340 trillion groups with 1 trillion numbers in each group, a functionally infinite number—ensuring room for future growth.
The global Internet transition from IPv4 to IPv6 picked up significant momentum late last year with the OMB IPv6 Mandate (released in September of 2010). This Federal CIO and OMB mandate requires all public/external facing servers and services to operate on the IPv6 system (including web, DNS, and ISP services) by the end of FY 2012. Shortly thereafter, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) announced that the final blocks of IPv4 addresses were handed out to Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) on February 3rd, 2011.
As a result DOT made the decision to transition to IPv6 well in advance of next year’s mandated deadline. Through a cloud computing contract, DOT is the first public department to transition to “dual stack” delivery. “Dual stack” is a technology that allows programmers to work with a hybrid IPv4/IPv6 network, and is a key component of the transition process. Through this contract, DOT began delivering traffic through IPv6 and transitioned www.dot.gov to dual stack delivery on Friday, November 18, 2011.
The transition also highlights the Federal cloud computing strategy to quickly develop highly reliable innovative services in the Federal government and launch new programs and capabilities without having to acquire additional hardware. IPv6 is only one of the innovative projects we’re working on here at DOT. For more information on other projects, please visit our webpage at http://www.dot.gov/cio/index.html.
