By Darryl K. Taft, eWeek
The Sept. 30 deadline for the IPv6 government public-facing server transition has passed, and the U.S. government is behind, costing taxpayers down the road and inviting the potential for a network disaster. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently released results showing 58 percent of agencies had made little-to-no progress toward moving to IPv6 from IPv4. There are signs that the United States is leading the cause for IPv6 adoption, but with government agencies working with various countries lacking in IPv6 adoption, there are questions on network compatibility. One of the companies keeping a close eye on the move to IPv6 is Akamai Technologies. To date, more than 20 different government agencies have contracted with Akamai to help with the switch to IPv6 and to ensure their data and their networks are secure under the new protocol. Akamai handles more than 2 trillion Web requests a day, giving them a unique vantage point from which to assess IPv6 adoption and traffic levels. On World IPv6 Launch in June, Akamai tracked real-time traffic data, noting a 460-times increase in the number of IPv6 requests as compared to those received on IPv6 day the year prior.
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