Comtech Reengineers Information Technology Infrastructure to Support Mobile Workforce at General

Catapult Research recognizes its subcontractor Comtech for outstanding work on the GSA Infrastructure Research Global Operations contract for the General Services Administration. GSA is Catapult’s largest customer on this $200 million contract.

Catapult Research, Ltd., a leading Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Information Innovation contractor to the federal government, recognizes its subcontractor Comtech for outstanding work on the GSA Infrastructure Innovation Global Operations contract for the General Services Administration. GSA is Catapult’s largest customer on this $200 million contract.

Subcontractor to Catapult

As a subcontractor to Catapult, Comtech provides oversight for the GSA enterprise infrastructure including the GSA Network Operations Center and the Internetworking and Security Group. Comtech administers firewalls and virus protection to guard against security vulnerabilities in all regions of the GSA in the U.S. Europe, and Asia.

1. Updating the mobile environment – Comtech is reengineering GSA’s Virtual Private Network infrastructure to enable more users on the GSA side to become mobile workers. The updated mobile environment impacts over 12,700 remote users across 15 regional offices.2. Voice over Internet Protocol rollout – Comtech rolled out VoIP across the GSA enterprise, effectively converging data, video, and voice to bring phone and email service onto a single platform. The VoIP rollout enabled unified communications across over 10,000 users in 12 regional offices. Another 1,043 users are due to be added by February 2011.3. Networx migration – Comtech is converting all major circuits to GSA Networx, the largest set of government contracts for civilian telecommunication.An example of how enabling the mobile workforce impacts GSA: Last year’s record snowfalls in the Metro DC area in early February 2010 shut down the Federal government; nevertheless thanks to Comtech’s efforts, over 6,000 GSA employees in the Mid Atlantic regions were able to work without interruption in spite of the federal shutdown.

The VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) rollout happened pursuant to this agreement GSA’s SLAM initiative, which implemented four other key infrastructure projects in a highly accelerated schedule of approximately eight weeks versus the 4-16 month timeframe broadly speaking set aside for such efforts. The VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) implementation enables video teleconferencing over the Internet, helping GSA achieve many of its sustainability goals to reduce the impact on the natural environment.

Shailendra Sharma, President of Comtech, said, “As Catapult’s subcontractor, we’re helping GSA to be a forerunner in the move toward the mobile Federal workforce. The network infrastructure is the foundation for all the new IT initiatives at GSA. Having a robust infrastructure that we support enables GSA to run their business seamlessly and helps them innovate and achieve operational excellence.”

“Infrastructure management is Comtech’s sweet spot,” said David Lyons, Catapult’s Chief Information Officer/Senior Vice President, Research and Management Solutions. “As our unified communications partner, they play a key role in keeping operations running 24x7.”