Written by Erica Johnson, Director, UNH-IOL
There has been a new buzz around the IPv6 community. Since the first NIST IPv6 test meeting held on May 2007 to the OMB June 2008 IPv6 connectivity mandate, new testing requirements have had commercial industry and agencies alike ramping up to make sure they are capable. This hasn’t happened overnight. It has taken two years for the industry, technology, and test methods to mature to the point where this testing can take place.
Last July 2008, NIST published the first version of the IPv6 profile for the USG that started the countdown to compliance in July 2010. Based on this profile, a test program has been sculpted with input from around the globe. Harmonizing with existing programs like the worldwide-accepted IPv6 Ready Logo, enabled NIST to get a kick- start. However with a wider spectrum than IPv6 Ready, new test specifications had to be developed to fulfill the requirements. In order to finalize some of these new tests the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory invites the IPv6 Industry to an Interoperability event during the week of July 13th to assess progress in several rotating multi-vendor environments. This USG program which is the largest IPv6 testing program to date and is another important step in IPv6 adoption.