GSA Blog

GSA’s Office of Government-wide Policy (OGP) set to host IPv6 Summit

GSA’s OGP is hosting an IPv6 Summit to bring together leaders from the federal government and industry for an engaging series of panels covering IPv6 implementation progress, opportunities and best practices. In November 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued  guidance on the federal government’s operational deployment and use of IPv6, “Completing the Transition to Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)”.  OMB guidance includes several key milestones for agencies to meet in FY21. The summit invites leaders in the IPv6 space to discuss their experiences and implementation processes. OGP’s intention is to raise awareness of critically important actions for agencies to complete for performance measures throughout FY22-25. Attendance is open to the public.

Keynote

Vinton G. Cerf, vice president and chief internet evangelist for Google, is providing the keynote address for the summit. Cerf has held positions at MCI, the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, Stanford University, UCLA and IBM. Vint Cerf served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and was the founding president of the Internet Society. He served on the US National Science Board from 2013-2018.

Widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” he received the US National Medal of Technology in 1997, the Marconi Fellowship in 1998 and the ACM Alan M. Turing award in 2004. In November 2005, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in April 2008 the Japan Prize and in March 2013, the Queen Elizabeth II Prize for Engineering.

New IPv6 Requirements 

M-21-07 stresses the importance of an IPv6-only infrastructure for the federal government. In the last 5 years, IPv6 momentum in industry has dramatically increased, with large IPv6 commercial deployments in many business sectors seeing reductions in cost and complexity, while security and innovation in networked information systems has improved.

M-21-07 includes several key milestones for agencies to meet in FY21, including creating an integrated project team, publishing an IPv6 policy, developing an agency-wide implementation plan, and identifying IPv6-only pilot opportunities. These are critically important actions for agencies to complete this year to prepare for performance measures throughout FY22-25 that stipulate annual benchmarks for the IPv6 transition.

Attending GSA’s IPv6 Summit

The June 16th IPv6 Summit is open to the public. Review the Federal Register notice to find more details about the agenda and how to register. We look forward to your attendance!