The Internet is running out of address space.

Although no one knows when all potential addresses will be appropriated, most experts see the window closing in five to 10 years. Four billion addresses just won’t be enough for every network device on the planet.

To meet this new demand, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the controlling standards body for the Internet, has upped the number of digits used per Internet address from 32 to 128. This next-generation Internet protocol, IP version 6 or IPv6, will offer possibly 35 trillion addresses, which should solve the address shortage for a while.

The IETF has also added new features into IPv6, such as enhanced security, quality-of-service measures and autoconfiguration, all of which will open up new services that can be offered by systems integrators.

However, implementing IPv6 across the Internet will be another “Y2K in the making,” said Latif Ladid, president of the IPv6 Forum, which fosters the protocol use. To upgrade to IPv6, government agencies will have to replace or improve all their network equipment, such as routers and switches. Software in the servers and desktop computers that use the Internet will also need upgrading.

This upgrade is in the making. In 1978, when the Defense Department mandated the integration of various stovepiped networks, including the Internet’s predecessor, ARPAnet, it chose the Internet protocol as the common platform, according to a history of the Internet by the Navy’s Spawar Systems Center in Charleston. S.C.

Unfortunately, the Defense Department did not predict the Internet would be as widely used as it is. Today, the number of Internet hosts doubles each year, with the current estimate pegged at approximately 115 million hosts online.

The pace is expected to continue as more developing nations jump online, and the falling costs of microchips all but guarantee that every electronic device will be controllable through the Internet, Ladid said. Many parties are leapfrogging straight to IPv6.

For government contractors, the message is clear: The Internet is moving to IPv6, and agencies must follow suit to keep pace with the world.

Earlier this year, government reseller GTSI Corp., Chantilly, Va., opened a lab to test new technologies, and one of the chief areas it is exploring is IPv6, said Sanjay Barthakur, a senior network engineer for the company.

Barthakur said GTSI has not yet experienced great demand for IPv6-ready gear from agencies, though the company is preparing for it. It purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of IPv6-ready network hardware from Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., and Sun Microsystems Inc., Palo Alto, Calif., as well as IPv6-ready software, such as Sun’s Solaris 8 and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP operating systems. GTSI will test this equipment in various multivendor configurations to anticipate problems agencies may experience.

Ken Albanese, senior systems engineering manager for Cisco’s federal unit, said Cisco is seeing a lot of interest in the federal arena, mostly from the Defense Department, but the equipment being purchased is for test environments.

Most [agencies] are watching the research community to see how they react,” Albanese said. “We haven’t seen mass infrastructures converted yet.”

Unlike Y2K, there is no deadline for installing IPv6. The real driver for the adoption within U.S. agencies will come from outside the country, Ladid said.

Last year, Japan set a 2005 deadline for all businesses and agencies to use IPv6. Korea and China also have national strategic adoption plans for the protocol. Europe, driven by a high use of cell phones, also has taken legislative initiatives.

Such countries want to use IPv6 to boost sagging economies, hoping the new features will spark new markets, Ladid said.

Countries late to the Internet revolution are also adapting IPv6 simply because there aren’t enough Internet addresses to go around, said Jeff Thomas, a product manager specializing in IPv6 products for Compagnie Financier Alcatel, Paris.

“India is struggling for IP space,” Thomas said, noting he saw a network in India using network address translation (the protocol that allows multiple computers to use one IP address) that was “five layers deep.”

This global adoption of IPv6 will leave U.S. federal agencies like “lobsters in a pot of slowly boiling water,” said Ladid, meaning they might not see a business case for upgrades at first, but if not careful, they will be left with outdated networks incapable of handling sophisticated network traffic.

The good news for government integrators is that IPv6 will also ease administration tasks and even allow new services.

“It’s a double-edged sword to us. We take care of various government networks, so in that sense it is just more work [to adopt IPv6]” said Mike Boese, deputy chief technology officer of the Advanced Information Systems unit of General Dynamics Corp. of Falls Church, Va. “The real advantage for us is that there should be a positive cost tradeoff. Even though you have to pay for the cost of switchover, you will recoup that cost over time because it’s easier to administer.”

Autoconfiguration features of IPv6 will also make it easier to deploy complex networks. “You won’t need so much specialized engineering in the background to make it happen,” Boese said.

IPv6 also will produce a long-sought-after solution for wireless security, said GTSI’s Barthakur, finally assuring that off-the-shelf wireless devices can be used safely for mission-critical jobs, such as police work and mobile networks for military units.