After years of postponing upgrades to government agency networks due to tight budgets, federal IT managers are in the process of modernizing legacy network infrastructure. The imminent upgrade needs are being driven by growing demands on their networks from mobile devices, video and more. IT professionals need to address this in two dimensions, by increasing both raw performance and efficiency through automation — while ensuring everything remains highly secure.

This is a sizable challenge, but one that is well worth addressing. For instance, a modern and optimized network can assist the Department of Defense in its efforts toward data center consolidation and a unified network through its ambitious Joint Information Environment initiative. Modernization can also alleviate many federal IT pain points, including provisioning new services with fewer resources, and the ability to more efficiently manage higher scale, while helping agencies become far more streamlined and agile.

Here are four steps that can help federal IT managers begin the modernization process:

SOURCE: gcn.com