IPv6 - From Concept to Field Trials

IPv6 is the next generation of the Internet Protocol and has been mandated by the Office of Management and Budget throughout Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense (DOD). This paper discusses the process of bringing IPv6 from an array of standards and transition documents to field testing in the CERDEC C4ISR OTM Experiment during the summer of 2007. The paper will discuss the development of the CERDEC IPv6 Laboratory and the process to go from concept to hardware. Where it is appropriate, conceptual ideas of new IPv6 features and performance will be compared to actual performance comparisons between IPv4 and IPv6 taken during this field experiment.