“As federal agencies embrace telework solutions on a massive scale, the increase in traffic is placing a large and unique amount of stress on federal networks and IT systems…”
How to Approach Network Capacity Constraints
“There are two issues that need to be considered, says Joel Snyder, a senior partner at Opus One, a Tucson, Ariz.-based IT security consulting firm (and a FedTech contributor). One is capacity to agency data centers, which is what IT administrators likely have running on a VPN. If agencies still have data center-based applications, for example, then they need to backhaul application traffic to the data center, Snyder notes. The second key issue is ensuring that agencies have enough network capacity to handle apps such as videoconferencing.”
“Most organizations are not running videoconferencing over VPNs, unless they are an office with a very small conferencing system that is used infrequently. ‘Most enterprises are using cloud-based conferencing solutions, and those that don’t are not using VPNs in any case,’ Snyder says…”
Ensuring Network Capacity and VPNs Are Configured Properly
“Network capacity for any agency should be far in excess of internet/WAN connectivity, according to Snyder, ‘so an upgrade just means calling the internet service provider and having them bump up the speed.’”
“However, IT leaders need to be careful, since certain speed bumps, such as those of more than 1 gigabit per second, are likely going to incur charges for the agency. If agencies do increase their bandwidth, then they should ensure that they do not have any old 100-megabit-per-second switches at the edge. A capacity bump, however, is the easy part, Snyder says, and agencies need to bear in mind how security appliances impact network traffic…”
How to Produce Optimal Performance for Collaboration
“Agencies should not be running videoconferencing apps over a VPN, for efficiency reasons, according to Snyder. ‘If you were looking for a reason to move to the cloud, now you have it,’ he says…” Read the full article here.
Source: How Agencies Can Best Cope with Network Strain – By Phil Goldstein, April 8, 2020. FedTech Magazine.
