Case study: Federal Agency National Network Upgrade

BACKGROUND

In the age of transparency, many Federal Agencies are looking to move more information to the Internet in order to provide collaboration between Federal Government, Local Government and Citizens. For one specific Federal Agency this would require not only optimization of their existing network but also a network upgrade to support the additional traffic. With multiple facilities and data centers which stretch between 78 cities and 24 states, this Federal Agency needed to find a way to consolidate their network to find some management and cost efficiencies. Coupled with the network optimization project, this agency also had to increase capacity on the network to support new applications coming online.  

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

The Federal Agency prioritized the sites for review and stated they needed to identify proximity and economics of using 3 party fiber networks to reach each site. They needed to find a way to grow the network while reducing their transport costs.

NETWORK SOLUTION

CFN created a business case and pricing inputs for SONET OC12/OC45 services and Dark Fiber. CFN Services conducted the study and established that a hybrid of SONET and Dark Fiber would provide the best cost efficiencies while growing their network. CFN as their partner dealt with the negotiations with contracts and lease schedules for acquisition of wavelengths and dark fiber rings. CFN Managed the delivery and acceptance of the networks and conducted all testing and verifications.

The final solution included:

• Consolidation of the network to now provide only three vendors the Agency needs to communicate
• CFN Turnkey Financing to allow the Agency the ability to handle dark and lit fiber as Operational Expenses
• CFN provides ongoing maintenance including: 24x7x365 NOC services; emergency dispatch with a 2 hour on-site response for fault isolation and resolution.