This June marks the deadline for U.S. agencies to make the switch to supporting IPv6. The basic requirement is that agencies must purchase IPv6-ready security and networking products. To assist with that, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published their most recent draft of the proposed standards for IPv6 products. In addition to specifying the required standards of IPv6 technology, this document lays out the rules for how much the new systems will be allowed to inter-operate with current IPv4 systems.

For now, government agencies are doing the bare minimum to comply with the new requirements. The next step for NIST is to develop a program which tests how compliant agencies really are with the new standards. Non-government agencies including big companies like Google and Microsoft have also been slow to make the switch. It has been suggested that the flaws of IPv4 may outweigh the costs of making the transition to IPv6.