Next Generation High Speed Networking

The U.S. Federal Government is facing unprecedented networking and communications challenges. The demand for bandwidth — both wired and wireless — and innovative new bandwidth-intensive services is soaring, putting today’s networks under incredible strain. The use of high-definition video, real-time collaboration and multimedia Web applications is becoming increasingly important to mission success in areas as diverse as battlefield medicine, surveillance, teleconferencing, and motor pool training. The use of mobile broadband and file sharing applications is rising sharply. Advances in research applications and the evolution to Cloud networking are also putting bandwidth pressure on existing networks.

Agency personnel and the citizens they serve expect a high quality experience with cloud networking, as well as seamless, always-on access to multimedia services across every kind of device: any time, any place, anywhere. For Federal Government agencies, the pressure becomes how to deliver services to meet these growing needs, while at the same time realizing efficiencies and savings across all areas.

To address today’s needs and prepare for the future, agencies are seeking a next generation network architecture networking and communications solutions that not only provide increased capacity and speed to deliver advanced services, but also provide enhanced security, scalability, and high availability while reducing operational costs.

Next Generation Network Architecture: Improving Mission Efficiency

As the U.S. Federal Government modernizes its telecommunications infrastructure, it is seeking solutions that will integrate next generation voice and multimedia services with existing mission-centric solutions. Next generation network architecture services allow users to experience true voice and data convergence, collaboration and mobility while preserving the quality of experience for each mission user, resulting in a more efficient workforce.

With the shift from Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) to Internet Protocol (IP) services, the government needs a networking and communications partner that can help implement this sea change in technology. While the movement of voice services to IP (IPv4 and IPv6) enables the long term goal of convergence of the voice and data networks, it also raises many challenges in information assurance, data network enhancement, Quality of Service (QoS) management, and network migration. In addition, guiding this evolution is the need to reduce overall capital expenditures (CAPEX) and ongoing maintenance expenses, while at the same time providing the ability to easily scale to implement evolving next generation network architectures, technologies and services as government missions and service requirements change.

The evolution of the network to next generation network architecture is primarily driven and enabled by:

• The need to control costs in the network core generally and, specifically, in the efficient handling of local traffic via a more distributed network deployment;
• The strategic transition to a predominantly IP infrastructure in networks with resulting ubiquitous availability of cost-efficient IP transport;
• The rapid maturity of the legacy MSC platforms with associated difficulties in support, maintenance and new feature development; and
• The rise of the service router, bringing attributes such as high availability, service aware management, and QoS to levels unattainable by Internet-era architectures. This enables always-on VoIP with mature tools to simplify and streamline network operations.

Next Generation High Speed Networking Government Solutions with LGS Innovations

Evolving to a next generation network architecture that delivers new services and applications while reducing costs often requires far-reaching changes to existing network infrastructure, information systems, and operations. Therefore, the U.S. Federal Government needs a trusted partner with transformation expertise, multivendor experience, and network and IT integration capabilities. Such a partner must offer a full range of services to cover all phases of the evolution to next generation high speed networking: development, planning, execution, and full life-cycle management.

LGS Innovations is that partner, offering a comprehensive set of services including multivendor network and systems integration, management of service level agreements (SLAs), and optimized Quality of Service (QoS), to support operational and agency transformation. Working with Federal agencies to adapt their networks, information systems, operations, and business models, LGS Innovations breaks network evolution down into manageable stages that align with agency missions.

Leveraging the global knowledge of parent company Alcatel-Lucent and the unparalleled innovation of Bell Labs, LGS Innovations brings a unique understanding of core and edge communications networking technology. This helps the U.S. Federal Government seamlessly connect to the Cloud and other networks, and to optimize its own networks to deliver the applications and services that best meet mission requirements. A trusted, experienced partner such as LGS Innovations offers the U.S. Federal Government a comprehensive portfolio of transformation services that can significantly de-risk and accelerate the transformation process.

LGS Innovations has substantial experience implementing next generation high speed networking platforms in mobile networks worldwide. With significant, large-scale, end-to-end systems deployment experience in IP-driven network transformations, solutions from LGS Innovations provide the highest quality of services and high service availability, while helping government agencies around the world achieve significant cost savings.

U.S. Federal Government agencies that partner with LGS Innovations receive products, services, and solutions to help with strategy and service planning; network and applications selection; evolution and migration planning; hybrid network management; cost effective and efficient implementation processes; and network management and maintenance.
 

The Power of Next-Generation High Speed Networking 360networks

The power of Alcatel-Lucent’s 100G solutions is already being put to use to transform communications in the private sector. 360networks, one of the largest U.S. providers of wholesale telecommunications services, has selected a distinctive combination of both the 1830 PSS and the 7750 SR to offer greater bandwidth capacity and IP-based Ethernet services across its 18,000 miles of network. This deployment supports 360networks’ delivery of regional Layer 2 Ethernet with very low latency and no congestion to intelligently manage traffic and support new bandwidth-hungry applications, such as live-streaming high-definition video.

360networks uses the Alcatel-Lucent Converged Backbone Transformation (CBT) solution: a comprehensive and integrated IP/optical solution spanning the data plane, the control plane, and the management plane, that slashes transport costs and dramatically reduces operational complexity in core networks.

"The popularity of such services as high-definition video and interactive gaming is prompting consumers to expect much greater quality and speed from their service providers while enterprise customers are demanding greater reliability for applications such as tele-presence and tele-health," said Brady Adams, chief technology officer for 360networks. "Alcatel-Lucent’s CBT solution and its 100G proposition help us manage traffic growth and enable us to develop the technologies and platforms that meet our customers’ growing demands."

Dresden and Bergakademie Freiberg Technical Universities

Alcatel-Lucent supported the connection of two high-performance data centers of the Dresden and Bergakademie Freiberg technical universities in Germany. This 37-mile link also used both IP and optical technologies. The extremely high bandwidth of 100G communications technology improves the cooperation between research facilities and facilitates more advanced Cloud networking service delivery options, paving the way for the proliferation of collaborative multimedia applications. Specifically, this new broadband link will provide the research data centers an environment in which they can evaluate bandwidth-intensive applications and services under realistic conditions.