Irvine-based QOS Networks and the California Department of Technology (CDT) confirmed that the two finalized a $5 million, as incurred, five-year contract to provide network solutions to customers of the California Government Enterprise Network (CGEN), the state’s wide-area network. The contract, awarded July 10, had a start date of July 15 and has the option of three one-year extensions. Among the takeaways:
• Through CGEN, CDT will work with QOS to improve the state’s networking position via Software-Defined Wide-Access Networking (SD-WAN) and the VeloCloud platform from VMware. After working with state customers roughly a year ago, officials identified a “dramatic shift” to public cloud services, with more mobile traffic and increased usage of smartphones, tablets and notebooks. Customers sought better adaptability; the ability to bring businesses and applications up in a timely fashion; streamlined processes and standardization; integrated security; and simplified maintenance. This “caused us to really transform how we approach the network,” Scott MacDonald, CDT deputy director of infrastructure services, told Techwire. Customers also wanted more flexibility than was currently available, all of which “took us in the direction of SD-WAN,” he said.
SD-WAN offers the state the ability to deploy policies in a standardized fashion from a centralized place, enhancing security. It helps officials manage costs better, by limiting the need for staff support and speeding up network provision, but also by enabling the state to utilize lower-cost circuits.
“This really takes networking to the next generation. A lot of SD-WAN, it’s really virtualizing a lot of the network functions. It’s really taking us in that direction, which makes it easier to deploy, easier to manage,” MacDonald said.
• Network space has been a “key focus” for organizations over the past few years, and SD-WAN has “forged its way to the forefront,” Stefanie Whittington, QOS Networks’ vice president of marketing, said via email.
“Integrations from the cloud, SaaS [software as a service] apps, on-prem requirements, edge stack operations, and more have made the network more and more of a critical piece to the performance of the [organization],” Whittington said, explaining that QOS’ business centers on the design, deployment, monitoring and management of network edge systems. “We typically work with complex, dispersed customers with hundreds and thousands of edge points across any number of verticals.”
• QOS, the primary provider, is managing procurement, network design, deployment and post-deployment management. It has already begun to work with a handful of state departments, Whittington said, indicating that departments will progress at “their pace,” ultimately “having SD-WAN through QOS Networks available essentially through a click-and-order capability.” The public sector is often slow to adopt new technologies, the vice president said, noting: “CDT is really one of the first to widely adopt SD-WAN and push it toward the over 200 agencies throughout the state.” QOS has worked with other local agencies, but the state is the first large-scale public-sector entity to collaborate with the company, Whittington told Techwire. MacDonald agreed.
“This is kind of what I’m hearing from some of the product vendors, as well," he said. "I know there’s a lot of other states looking at SD-WAN solutions, but I’m hearing that we’re leading the way a little bit on that.”
• The deployment is initially focused on CGEN customers — but because the technology can “ride across existing infrastructure” and is carrier-agnostic, it could be made available elsewhere across the state and even to local agencies, MacDonald said. A wider availability could happen later this year. Officials have also been working on SD-WAN with the Department of Rehabilitation and are in the midst of a pilot at a couple of its offices, while planning to roll out to other sites.
