The Challenge of Deploying IPv6 in the Midst of a Pandemic
30/07/2020
The coronavirus pandemic found the technical team of Colombia’s National Disaster Risk Management Unit (UNGRD) moving forward with the development and deployment of IPv6. This unexpected obstacle further strengthened the idea of advancing in the transition to the new Internet protocol.
This momentum led the organization to register for the latest edition of the IPv6 Challenge, a competition designed by LACNIC to promote the use of this protocol in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The work of the Colombian team was recognized for its excellent quality standards and the methodologies it used. LACNIC News interviewed Rafael Ignacio Sandoval Morales, General Project Manager at IPv6 Technology of Colombia.
Colombia has always played an active role in the field of ICTs. What prompted you to participate in the latest edition of the IPv6 challenge?
LACNIC’s IPv6 Challenge is an opportunity to show Latin America and particularly Colombia what the National Disaster Risk Management Unit, a pioneer within its sector at the national level, has achieved in terms of its transition to the new Internet protocol. Our experience will encourage others who are just starting this process.
We chose this moment to apply because IPv6 development and implementation at UNGRD was mature enough, and the Challenge gave us the chance to validate this degree of maturity and to find out if what we had done met the standards and complied with the methodologies proposed for this type of implementations.
Taking one of the first places in LACNIC’s IPv6 Challenge places UNGRD among the winners and makes us feel very proud for Colombia. We measured ourselves against many other projects from different countries and we were evaluated by a committee comprised of well-known Latin American experts. This means that we did things more than well.
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What lessons did you learn as a result of the IPv6 Challenge considering that your participation was marked by the appearance of the COVID-19 virus?
The appearance of COVID-19 represented a challenge for the technological infrastructure of any entity, so we had to adjust all our processes and resources to meet user needs.
The implementation of IPv6 allowed us to continue providing various technological services that are key to our organization, without many of our business divisions suffering any interruptions. In fact, at the beginning of the pandemic there was a significant increase in the demand for technological services due to the relocation and virtualization of employment. That’s when we started to notice that our clients are consuming more services via IPv6, although this is transparent to the users.