A conducted weekly by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows that only five organizations have successfully deployed IPv6 on their DNS, email and websites as required by the mandate. These organizations are: the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Defense Research and Engineering Network, Defense High Performance Computing, and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.

In total, only 10 out of 1,565 domains operated by federal agencies were able to pass NIST's tests for IPv6 support on DNS, email and Web this week. That's not even 1% of the total number of domains tested.

Ron Broersma, DREN chief engineer, told the audience that IPv6 is ready for deployment. " and performance of IPv6 is equivalent to IPv4," he said. "IPv6 deployment doesn't have to be costly if you use tech refresh and if you don't procrastinate."

Broersma said one challenge for federal agencies is that some of the carriers that they are required to use through the Networx contract are not providing sufficient IPv6 services. is an umbrella telecommunications contract that federal agencies must use to purchase voice, video and data services.

"There are some carriers on the Networx contract lacking IPv6. One won't have it until the end of the calendar year," Broersma said. "Some federal agencies may need to switch ISPs, which is a pretty big deal."