IPv6 - Are you ready? If not when will you be?

Good article by Ellen Messmer over on CIO-today on the lack of security products for IPv6. The US government wants all of their networks to support IPv6 by mid-2008.  Government folks I have spoken to privately tell me there is a snowballs chance in you know where of this happening.  Now it seems that NIST is coming out with a report that says the lack of IPv6 commercial security products could be a major impediment to implementation of IPv6.  While IPv6 is not new, the adoption of it has been very, very slow.  Also, because of the many "tunneling" options to run IPv4 in IPv6 and vice versa, even when it does start to show up, we are going to have mixed used hybrid mash ups of IPv4 and IPv6 for some time.

What I thought was really interesting is it seems "... NIST wants to take the lead in setting security requirements for IPv6 and require conformance testing for IPv6-based infrastructure, such as routers, and security network devices.

"Additional efforts are required to 'raise the bar' in these areas to ensure the safety of IPv6 deployments and in operational Federal I.T. systems," NIST states.

I would assume that once the Federal standards are set, it would make sense for private enterprises to adopt them.  So it could be that NIST sets the standard for all of us regarding IPv6.  Bottom line is that though it may not be mid-2008, but before you know it, IPv6 will be here.  You should be making your plans around it now.