DISA makes progress upgrading to new internet protocol

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon agency tasked with combat IT support is finalizing long-time efforts to transition the department to the latest system that routes internet traffic across the globe.

The Defense Information Systems Agency must enable core hardware for internet protocol version 6 by the end of 2021, according to Kenneth Garofalo, lead for IPv6 virtual program management office at DISA. The timeline, outlined in a policy letter signed in October by agency director Vice Adm. Nancy Norton, requires all other DISA services and external IT systems to be IPv6-only by the end of 2025. A strategy document and implementation plan will follow in the future, Garofalo said Tuesday at AFCEA TechNet.

It has been 17 years since the department started trying to implement this latest version of the internet’s address book, which replaces IPv4. IPv6, developed in the 1990s, is a version of internet protocol that identifies and locates devices connected to the internet. The problem with IPv4 is that the 4.5 billion addresses that it can sustain are nearly used up, considering the world population is about 7.8 billion. In contrast, IPv6 provides so many IP addresses that the number is hard to grasp—about 340 undecillion, or 340 followed by 36 zeroes like this: 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.