GSA eyes SDN for post-pandemic telecom flexibility
The General Services Administration is counting on software-defined networking services to help it modernize its own telecommunications and manage demand for connectivity in offices nationwide, according to one of the agency’s key IT managers.
GSA Deputy CIO Beth Killoran said SDN capabilities will help the agency adjust network capacity at its offices as the pandemic progresses.
Speaking on an Aug. 26 AFFIRM webcast, Killoran said that with the expansion of GSA’s remote workforce, the “capacity in those buildings has changed.” Mobile services will also play an important role in GSA’s post-pandemic networking environment, she said.
GSA has been interested in being able to dynamically shift network capacity for some time, according to Killoran, and it has been running pilot programs to see how it could handle shifts in employee occupancies at its buildings even before the pandemic struck.
With the pandemic, that flexibility is even more critical, according to Killoran. Building capacities are far from certain as workers transition back to the offices from remote work. SDN, she said, can help deal with that uncertainty.
“SDN is based on capacity and need,” said Killoran. “It allows us to throttle” network use depending on demand, she said. “The ability to flex capacity and save money and network resources for telecommunications services, as well as have the telecommunications provider manage them more efficiently,” she said.
This article was first posted to FCW, a sibling site to GCN.