* Five areas where federal networks have carrier-class requirements
Federal networks are getting so big, complex and mission-critical that they now require carrier-class rather than enterprise-level equipment. That’s the conclusion of a study released last week by FedSources, a McLean, Va. market research firm.
The study, entitled: “Changing Government Telecom Network Requirements for the 21st Century,” was funded by Tellabs Government Systems, a new division of the carrier-grade equipment provider targeting the U.S. federal market.
The study involved interviews with federal telecommunications executives and analysis of the requirements listed in upcoming federal network procurements. FedSources conducted its research during the fourth quarter of 2006.
“Tellabs approached us with an interesting hypothesis: that the government is starting to think more like a carrier. We think we validated that hypothesis,” says Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president at FedSources.
Bjorklund says more federal agencies are adopting a dual-carrier approach and supporting their Web sites with two service providers using an architecture known as dual homing.
“You see agencies like the U.S. Postal Service and now Veterans Affairs that have to have a high level of continuity of operations,” Bjorklund says. “The only way to get that is to have a high level of network resources.”
The study identified five areas where federal networks have carrier-class requirements:
* Availability. Agencies often request 99.999% availability for their networks, which equates to around 5 minutes of downtime per year. In contrast, the standard requirement in federal procurements 10 years ago was for 99.8% network availability, which is more than 17 hours of downtime per year.
* Bandwidth. The Defense, Justice and Transportation Departments require OC-48 or 2.5Gbps bandwidth. Some agencies even require OC-192, which is 9.6Gbps, for their data centers and research facilities.
* QoS. Agencies are migrating to MPLS technology to offer hundreds or thousands of separate classes of service to particular applications and users. In particular, agencies need to prioritize communications related to public safety.
* Interoperability. Agencies such as the Defense Department and the U.S. Postal Service operate some of the world’s largest networks, which support diverse technologies and legacy protocols. These networks are similar to the heterogeneous networks operated by top-tier carriers.
* Manageability. Agencies are demanding greater visibility into and control over their networks for provisioning and traffic prioritization. Federal network managers are demanding tools for traffic re-routing and disaster recovery that are on par with those used by service providers.
“If you look at the carrier-class requirements of the federal government, we believe the requirements are here and now, not in the future,” says Joe Shilgalis, vice president of Tellabs Government Systems. “The people served by federal networks are the citizens, and because of their demands, these networks need to be more carrier-class than enterprise class.”
Because of these trends, Tellabs has launched a 20-person government sales and engineering group in Ashburn, Va. The division will sell direct to federal agencies and systems integrators, rather than through distributors.
In October, Tellabs signed a contract with the General Services Administration that allows agencies to purchase its complete line of routers and other products. Tellabs also offers its gear to federal agencies on NASA’s Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement (SEWP) III contract through Unisys.
“Our goal is that by 2009 we will be earning $100 million a year,” Shilgalis says of the new division.
Tellabs hopes to get on a team for Networx, a federal telecommunications contract that is expected to be worth $20 billion over the next 10 years. Networx is due for award in the first half of 2007.
The U.S. federal market for network equipment and services is the world’s largest, with an annual budget of $6.5 billion in 2007. This figure is down from $6.9 billion in 2006 because of declining prices for telecom services.
