DoD Now Preparing For Rapid Move To IPv6, Hi-Tech Chief Says

Telecom Policy Report, July 2, 2003

John Osterholz, director of architecture and interoperability for the Department of Defense, late last week told a gathering of technology elite that the Pentagon would phase out purchases of IPv4 network technologies by this fall and would instead begin trials of equipment and applications based on the new IPv6 protocol for the Internet within 30 days. He said the move was intended to build a "Global Information Grid" of "Net-centric" operations that was fully distributed, available and secure. He noted that this would be an important part of fighting terrorism and ensuring homeland security.

The Pentagon's decision to make the shift to IPv6 could have a huge impact on the U.S. telecom industry inasmuch as many of the sector's manufacturers are not yet engaged in producing significant ranges of IPv6-compatible equipment

That doesn't seem to bother the Pentagon.

"Al-Qaeda maintains a low profile and is highly distributed," Osterholz told an audience gathered in San Jose, Calif. "Until recently, we had no capability to operate similarly, and we understand it is an important capability. They were Net-centric. We were not. Their command and control capability requires us to have a similar capability."

In his speech to the group, Osterholz laid out his plans for moving the entire DoD information technology infrastructure - the world's largest, with an annual IT budget exceeding $30 billion - into full IPv6 compliance by 2008.

The measure represents an unprecedented move by Defense to approach the entire commercial Internet infrastructure, which includes equipment produced by Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and NT&T, with detailed instructions on the networking standards it plans to support.

Historically, DoD has created or commissioned vendors to build proprietary infrastructure. But the DoD's need for global, immediate access to secure, real-time information has moved the department from an infrastructure of data links between proprietary systems to a secure global enterprise built on the next generation of open systems.

Osterholz referred to this system as the "Global Information Grid," or GIG, and said one of its primary DoD uses will be "predictive battlespace awareness" that combines intelligence and operations technologies in a connected, real-time environment. "Our soldiers need better information in order to make better decisions - who to help and who to kill," he said. "The lack of security and flexibility in the current IPv4 protocol is a drag on our wing. This isn't about 'do you trust the Internet for your kid's homework'; it's 'do you trust your kid's life' ... If we fail, people die."

[Copyright 2003 PBI Media, LLC. All rights reserved.]