Future of Federal Networks

Federal networks are straining under demands posed by increased use of mobile devices, teleworking and alternative schedules, bandwidth-hungry applications, video traffic, cyber risks, and exploding data volumes. Many agencies have invested in modernizing the desktop, compute and storage domains of their IT infrastructures. But they nevertheless find themselves saddled with outdated legacy networking environments comprised of single-function appliances that lack the agility and responsiveness to keep pace with their data needs.

Consequently, agencies across government are on the cusp of a new wave of network modernization activity ushered in by the General Services Administration’s Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program. 

As with compute and storage, networking technology is undergoing a significant evolution to better support and enable advances in the expanding areas of cloud computing, big data, mobility, Internet of Things (IoT), and cybersecurity. 

The use of Application Intelligence provides deep visibility into an application’s health and performance and, ultimately, the ability to apply insights gained from that visibility toward improved mission performance. 

Networking capabilities traditionally served by dedicated proprietary hardware are now migrating to more software-based solutions – and that heralds many benefits for federal agencies, including:

• Improved network speed, reliability, agility, and scalability
• Lower capital and operating costs
• Faster troubleshooting and patch deployment at remote field offices
• Solutions to the end-of-life challenges posed by legacy hardware
• Reduced risk posed by legacy hardware that requires hard-to-find specialized skills

This event will examine how these advances in networking technology and capability can address federal challenges and possibly change traditional approaches to:

• Capital investment in networks
• Operations and maintenance
• Troubleshooting
• Legacy infrastructure
• Application performance

Please visit http://atarcbriefing.org/ for the full agenda. 

This collaborative event for Federal IT practitioners is hosted by the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC) in collaboration with AT&T Public Sector Solutions, Juniper Networks, GovLoop and Government Matters.