Verizon Business this week opened a facility in Ashburn, Va., that combines managed network and security services for federal government customers.
The carrier’s Government Network Operations and Security Center (GNOSC) is a 30,000-square-foot, multimillion-dollar facility built to government security standards. In addition to managed network services, GNOSC will house managed security-service operations for federal government civilian, intelligence and defense agencies that Verizon Business previously maintained in facilities in Rockville, Md.
The GNOSC will employ 300, including all that were working in the Rockville facility, Verizon Business says.
Currently, the network operations of four federal agencies are conducted out of the GNOSC, says Jerry Edgerton, group president for Verizon Federal. Edgerton declined to identify those agencies and others that will have network and security operations managed out of the facility.
Edgerton did say, however, that the network operations of the U.S. Postal Service, Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Homeland Security will remain in a Verizon Business facility in Cary, N.C.
The GNOSC conducts 24×7 real-time network monitoring of federal government customers’ global network traffic. The center will also play a role in helping the federal government adopt the next generation Internet protocol, IPv6, to meet the Office of Management and Budget’s mandated transition target of June 2008, Verizon Business says.
Verizon Business is one of the two U.S. telecom services providers initially awarded the Federal Telecommunications Service (FTS) 2001 contract by the U.S. General Services Administration, enabling the carrier to serve virtually every federal agency under the existing contract.
Early next year, the GSA is expected to award the replacement contract to FTS2001 agreement – dubbed Networx.
GNOSC is the first major network facility the carrier has opened since the January merger of Verizon and MCI. In addition to the network monitoring and security center, GNOSC also includes an emergency command center, briefing center, program-management office and support office space.
