Join The
Infrastructure Leaders Your
network management mission: Increase operational efficiency, modernize
infrastructure and meet mobility and wireless requirements. BTW, all
must be secure.
Dave Bowen, CIO at the Federal Aviation Administration, wears many
hats. He has responsibility for setting FAA information systems policy,
plus the real operating responsibility of actively monitoring the
security of all FAA’s IT infrastructures –
specifically
administrative, operating and network. (See sidebar below.)
Peter Tseronis, the Director of Network Services at Education, sees
himself as someone who needs to design and manage the necessary
architecture, the ‘plumbing’ as he calls it, so
that all
the services, applications and programs can run over this converging
infrastructure – specifically voice, data and video
communications.
Tseronis also wears another hat. He is the Federal IPv6 Working Group
Co-Chair, leading and shepherding federal efforts to meet the June 30
deadline for all agency backbone networks to be compliant with the new
IPv6 protocol.
Wearing different hats is nothing new for government managers such as
Bowen and Tseronis. Like you, they have priorities –
specifically
increasing operational efficiency, improving infrastructure and meeting
mobility and wireless requirements. But while Bowen and Tseronis may
have hands-on network management responsibilities, the care, feeding
and security of your network infrastructure really starts with you
– specifically what management expert Michael Lisagor calls
“the enlightened manager”.
Why
Care About Network Management?
The answer is simple: When the network is functioning, you are
functioning. When the network is down, you are down. Being down is not
an option.
A technology refresh plan
– where you continually invest money in your network
– is paramount to keeping networks modernized.
That’s why, according to the 1105 Government Information
Group
2007 Government IT Buying Study, you are increasing your networking/
communications investments – specifically in hubs/switches,
routers, IP switches, wireless networks, VOIP, sensor webs, RFID,
networking software and bandwidth management. And among network
services, your highest buying intentions are for wireless services.
“A technology refresh plan – where you continually
invest
money in your network – is paramount to keeping networks
modernized,” said Tseronis. “Technology is in a
constant
state of flux. New solutions spawn new opportunities for scalability.
But, it takes funds to reinvest to build and refresh your network. If you don’t have
a
technology refresh fund, you should,” counsels Tseronis.
Equally as important as a technology refresh plan, is senior management
education on security because it validates these investments. Navy CIO
Rob Carey explained why during the recent Federal Executive Forum on
Cybersecurity. “We have done a lot to educate the very senior
decision makers, the departmental secretaries, on the risks associated
with information security and the investments required to maintain
that. Once you have their buy in, you can then afford yourself the
opportunity to work the budget issues with their support.”
Managed
Networx Services Now
Helping transforming the network infrastructure landscape is
GSA’s new Networx contract.
Karl Krumbholz is GSA’s Networx program manager. He says the
Networx contract will transform the current federal telecommunications
system to a modern, secure, worldwide IP and MPLS-based network
compliant with IPv6 and other major technological advances anticipated
throughout its contract life. The Networx program provides comprehensive best value telecommunications and networking
services, as well as technical solutions available to all federal
agencies. You can buy and manage these network services yourself, or
you can enter in to a managed services relationship with a provider
Krumbholz explains. “Our understanding is as agencies move
more
and more to an enterprise network, they want to host applications
through their service provider. Networx provides all the services they
need. We provide an agency the ability to order data hosting services
from a vendor to manage that data, which is much more cost effective
and economical.”
Your
Plate Is Full
In this climate of budget cutbacks, resource shortages, and heightened
public expectations, you are dealing daily with the pressures of
optimizing online government processes. You are looking to adopt
information- and services-sharing techniques to reduce the redundancy
of systems and to consolidate your back-office infrastructure. You are
moving to a converged network environment where voice (and telephony
features), data (and productivity applications) and video are securely
available to users in and out of the office.
At the same time, wireless technology and mobility are leading to a new
type of network access layer – the “mobile
edge.” On
the mobile edge, users connect over wireless networks wherever they go.
Mobility exposes networks to intruders, the leak of sensitive data, and
subject the network to virus and worm outbreaks.
To deal effectively with these issues takes management that is
enlightened; takes advantage of new technology; can imagine future
network applications as IPv6 becomes a reality; and benefits from
managed services relationships. The first installment of the 2008 Government Infrastructure Series on Network Management brings you
straight talk on these topics from leaders such as Dave Bowen, Peter
Tseronis, Michael Lisagor and Karl Krumbholz.
14
Million – And Counting
Intrusions
remain the #1 threat to networks. “My number at
the FAA is 14 million,” said CIO Dave Bowen. “There
are approximately 14 million attempts to access our network that we
deny every month. This gets reported to our management team. The Chief
Information Security Officer (CISO) reports to me and we have an
organization at the FAA called our Cyber Security Management Center,
which does the security monitoring.” Recently through a
merger agreement with the Department of Transportation, FAA has taken
on that role for the entire department. “Having this
reporting mechanism at FAA has cut the incidence of personal identity
theft and embarrassment to the agency in half over the last couple of
years,” said Bowen.
“I’ve challenged my security organization to really
move up a notch and look at how we become the best in class at
providing security services,” explained Bowen during the
February Federal Executive Forum on Cyber Security. “Our goal
is to take our Cyber Security Management Center and make it a center of
excellence; and move to a position where we can actually provide
security services for other civilian agencies in the federal
government. So we are looking at benchmarking practices with the NSA;
we are looking at best practices from the corporate world; and how do
we incorporate those practices and those technologies to really make
our center a world class operation,” Bowen continued.
Often the focus is on the latest and greatest technology; the one that
is going to solve all our problems. But without the right people with
the right skills, technology ultimately fails. At FAA, CIO
Bowen recognizes this. Thus, there must be as much an investment in people and education as there is in technology.
Intrusions
remain the #1 threat to networks. “My number at
the FAA is 14 million,” said CIO Dave Bowen. “There
are approximately 14 million attempts to access our network that we
deny every month. This gets reported to our management team. The Chief
Information Security Officer (CISO) reports to me and we have an
organization at the FAA called our Cyber Security Management Center,
which does the security monitoring.” Recently through a
merger agreement with the Department of Transportation, FAA has taken
on that role for the entire department. “Having this
reporting mechanism at FAA has cut the incidence of personal identity
theft and embarrassment to the agency in half over the last couple of
years,” said Bowen. 
