IPv6 readiness and virtualization management proved to be key issues in the second annual Federal IT Trends Survey, conducted by IT management solutions provider ScienceLogic. Over 100 federal agency IT managers, systems administrators and network engineers were polled on various topics within federal IT, including Green IT solutions, virtualization and FISMA compliance.

Surprisingly, only 65 percent of agency IT personnel surveyed say that IPv6 is important to their operations - making this issue second to last on the list of priorities covered by the survey. Last year, an equal number of respondents, 1 in 5, said that their agencies would and would not meet the June 2008 mandate for IPv6. This year, the numbers went up, 1 in 3, but the respondents remain equally split on whether or not their agencies will meet the mandate.

"Government IT workers remain equally split on IPv6 readiness, and even personnel from the same agency had differing opinions," said David Link, CEO of ScienceLogic. "This shows the general lack of understanding about the mandate requirements and what agencies are really doing about them. The June mandate only requires that backbone
networks support IPv6, probably making it a lower priority for most government IT workers. The real test will come when actual IPv6 applications must be supported which will impact networks, systems, applications and monitoring tools throughout the government."

Virtualization management continues to be important to federal IT personnel, with over 85 percent marking the technology as important to their daily operations. Adoption of solutions, however, appears to have dropped off from last year; only 15 percent polled have tools in place versus 20 percent last year.

"The lack of adoption for virtualization management tools reflects the immaturity of the solutions in this market and general lack of understanding about best practices and the tools necessary to optimize infrastructure availability and performance and manage virtual sprawl," said Link. "More vendors are entering this market all the time and trying to find real solutions amid the noise has become increasingly difficult."

The survey also showed:

• FISMA compliance and Securing IT is a top issue
• Having a complete IT Asset Inventory is a critical issue
• Green IT is important, but low priority
• ITIL/CMDB deployments are up
• Web 2.0 Tools are being adopted

IT personnel were also asked to list the top challenges for their department; Budget Constraints came in at first place at 62 percent of those surveyed. Following it were IT Security (46 percent) and New Technology and Innovation (39 percent). Surprisingly, Proving Value and ROI came in at only 10 percent, perhaps showing that many agency IT departments are confident that the technology they employ can meet service-level agreements.