Innovative Cloud Solutions for the U.S. Federal Government

Migrating to the Cloud will dramatically change the way the U.S. Federal Government accesses and provides services to agency personnel and the citizens it serves. Before making the commitment to migrate real-time, mission-critical applications to the Cloud – whether private, public, or hybrid – government agencies need to prepare their networks to support Cloud solutions.

From initial consulting services to define the Cloud strategy, to the selection and implementation of the most effective technologies, architecture, and professional and networking services, LGS Innovations partners with its U.S. Federal Government customers at every step of their Cloud migration. LGS Innovations offers both the expertise and the Cloud solutions to transform the U.S. Federal Government’s collection of enterprise data centers to virtualized, geographically disbursed Cloud service centers over Cloud-ready networks.

Transforming the Network to a Cloud Enabler

The World Economic Forum recently advised businesses and governments worldwide to provide sufficient network connectivity to cloud services. Sufficient network connectivity allows users who entrust their data to the Cloud to be confident that they will be able to access wired and wireless Cloud services on demand.

LGS Innovations helps U.S. Federal Government agencies transform their networks to deliver high bandwidth and provide necessary redundancy to support mission-critical applications. With the ability to leverage the insight of parent company Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) and its Bell Labs R&D organization, LGS Innovations applies its networking expertise to address the specific challenges facing the U.S. Federal Government in its Cloud migration.

LGS Innovations delivers the High Leverage Network™ (HLN), a next generation, wide area networking architecture built on optical transport and service-aware routing. HLN is a carrier-grade architecture that is ideally suited to Cloud services or other legacy services that require demand-based access and application-based Quality of Service (QoS) commitments. HLN’s carrier-grade reliability and secure interfaces support network-wide signaling, management, provisioning and reporting.

Preparing for a Cloud Migration

LGS Innovations provides consulting, design, security and networking solutions services to help government agencies develop their Cloud strategy and prepare for network migration. From the initial phases of analysis and planning, to the implementation of new technology products, solutions deployment and ongoing maintenance, LGS Innovations ensures that the customer’s network evolves to address its specific Cloud computing requirements, and is aligned to support mission objectives.

Professional and consulting services include analysis, planning, transition and support:

• Assessment: An integrated, objective assessment of the readiness of moving a customer IT service to the Cloud.
• Planning: Selecting the appropriate Cloud services, sizing the service, migration planning, and service acquisition.
• Transition: Working with the customer’s IT department around data migration, DNS/directory administration, and user training.
• Support: Ongoing support for change orders, architectural changes, and troubleshooting.

Networking solutions services include engineering, design, furnishing, integration, installation, and maintenance services:

• Engineering: Definition of the rules, methods, configurations and processes to be used in designing and building Cloud-enabling network architecture and system components.
• Design: Production of the post-transformation Cloud network architecture, physical network topology, technical services, component specifications, and the system criteria (capacity, configuration, security, availability, QoS, service level management, network management, incident, problem, change, and cost management).
• Furnishing: Material procurement and management; direct and immediate access to procurement specialists who can obtain materials in CONUS and OCONUS; and the build and upgrade of the needed physical infrastructure (ISP, OSP and power).
• Integration: Testing the new network interfaces and components to make sure everything effectively interoperates with legacy services, and that the new Cloud-enabled networks work in harmony. Includes system testing to reduce or eliminate end-user disruptions.
• Installation: Efficient migration from legacy networks to the Cloud-based networks.
• Maintenance: Ongoing technical assistance and upgrades to keep the Cloud solution networks running to the highest standards and with optimal efficiency.

Building a Cloud Network Framework

LGS Innovations provides an end-to-end, application-aware network solution that supports the U.S. Federal Government’s delivery of Cloud services and will transition the U.S. Federal Government data centers to on-demand, Cloud-based service delivery. Leveraging best-in-class IP routers, optical switching and transport, LAN switching, and management solutions and services, Cloud components from LGS Innovations provide high availability, scalability, and network visibility – critical elements of a Cloud networking environment.

Through advanced technologies that extend virtualization to the network, the LGS Innovations Cloud infrastructure portfolio creates an agile network fabric that maintains organizational isolation and supports multi-tenancy in public or private Clouds with carrier-grade availability (better than 99.999 percent) in a services-oriented architecture. Computing, storage, and application resources provide optimal service due to the dynamic network-level connection between end users and data centers. This provides transparency and efficient performance without relying on geographic or physical user presence.

Strengthened with integrated security mechanisms, LGS Innovations’ Cloud solution is tailored to meet the U.S. Federal Government’s evolving Cloud service requirements, migrating data centers from legacy static to dynamic, and providing secure, high capacity bandwidth.

Data Center Fabric

• Optical Transport and Data Center Switching
  • 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) portfolio
• Virtualization for inter-data center mobility with dynamic application assurance
  • 7750 Service Router (SR)
• Scalable, IP MPLS-enabled Ethernet Service Switch
  • 7450 Ethernet Service Switch
• Intra-data center networking (either Alcatel-Lucent or OEM)
  • Top of Rack (TOR): OmniSwitch 6850/6850E (or new OmniSwitch 6900)
  • End of Row (EOR): OmniSwitch 9000E
  • Core: OmniSwitch 10K

Unified Cloud Management

• Service Aware Management (SAM 5620): End-to-end service management across all domains of the converged, all-IP network, giving visibility and control into dynamic IP/MPLS routing and services delivery. 
• Data Center Automation: Migration to the Cloud requires service automation and orchestration in order to realize operational efficiencies and minimize costs. LGS Innovations’ data center automation solution manages both network and virtual machine provisioning through a web portal for unified Cloud management, billing, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Dynamic Application Assurance

Migrating legacy applications to the Cloud must continue to satisfy government users’ needs for reliable, secure data in a multi-tenant environment – and users requiring mission-critical applications must receive optimal performance in the Cloud. LGS Innovations’ application assurance capability is integrated in our IP Service Routers and dynamically applies QoS at the application level. This unique capability identifies, monitors, and controls the performance of specific applications within a service group, and maintains the QoS demanded by Cloud-based applications.

LGS Innovations offers both the expertise and the Cloud portfolio solutions to transform the U.S. Federal Government’s enterprise to virtualized, geographically disbursed Cloud service centers over secure, reliable Cloud-ready networks.