Please visit our library of valuable information which details how video breaks down walls of communication and helps public sector organizations achieve their missions.
Posts Tagged ‘ interoperability ’
Interoperability key for meeting federal mandates
Jan 19 2010
The Obama administration is pushing agencies to begin insourcing jobs by bringing them back to government employees and relying less on outside vendors. The OMB is reaching out to agencies to help them appropriately understand and handle a directive that appears at face-value to be a complete about-face from the previous administration.
The administration is pushing for insourcing for many reasons. First, there is a perception, warranted or not, that outsourcing jobs is wasteful and expensive, and that agencies can be handling governmental tasks at a savings to the American taxpayer. Insourcing is also being heralded as a way of increasing collaboration among agencies and creating a tighter-knit and interconnected system where government employees work closely together.
However , there are some issues arising from this new directive for insourcing. One is the misinterpretation among agencies that they’re being asked to stop outsourcing altogether and bring all jobs in house. Another problem is directly tied to human resources and hiring. Insourcing will bring many jobs back to government agencies who are already missing tens of thousands employees in mission-critical positions, according to this year’s Where the Jobs Are report from the Partnership for Public Service.
The other problem lies in the directive for agencies to work closer together and collaborate across the board. Unfortunately, with agencies making their own purchasing decisions, the networks across agencies are disparate and disconnected. The video teleconferencing (VTC) systems that agencies have been turning to as a way to increase communication and collaboration internally could go a long way towards doing the same for interagency collaboration, but the lack of connected systems remain a roadblock.
This is why interoperability of VTC solutions is so important. Interoperability is essential for allowing disparate networks and VTC solutions to work together. Also, with cyber attack and network security on the minds of all agencies, firewalls and other security measures are often put in place with little to no consideration for video networks. This makes the ability to traverse firewalls essential for both network security and interagency collaboration.
VTC solutions are becoming increasingly popular in federal agencies, and with this directive to insource jobs, they will become even more essential. With the government already straining to fill mission-critical jobs at agencies, and with the government workforce graying and near retirement, flexibility and telework are going to continue to be job benefits necessary to keep aging government employees working and attracting the best talent into public service.
TANDBERG equipment has been the choice of many government agencies in large part for its ability to interoperate with other networks and equipment. By breaking down the walls between government agencies and giving them the means to increase flexibility and retain top talent, TANDBERG is providing a new way of working within the federal government.
VTC — empowering the new Guard
Dec 10 2009
TANDBERG recently had the honor of attending the 2009 National Guard Bureau Joint Information Technology Conference in Florida, where the focus was increasing communication and collaboration among Guard units and between the National Guard and Air National Guard.
As the nation’s primary homeland defense and the first line for bringing assistance, aid and relief to areas of America damaged by natural disasters, the National Guard and Air National Guard have an extremely important mission.
Situations where the National Guard and Air National Guard are needed are often chaotic. In fact, in times of attack and natural disaster, communication resources are often damaged and unavailable. This makes it difficult for communication and collaboration with controlling officers and even between units.
Luckily, some recent technological advances such as HD and mobile video teleconferencing (VTC) and satellite communication, are now available for the National Guard and Air National Guard to help them coordinate during attacks and natural disasters.
By utilizing mobile VTC solutions that receive and send signals via satellite, National Guard units can communicate face-to-face with their commanding officers and other units regardless of their location.
Our conversations with National Guard and Air National Guard IT personnel during the conference revealed a strong desire to see communication and collaboration increase, but many were concerned that disparate networks and firewalls could be a potential deal breaker in the implementation of VTC solutions.
In times of recession and tight budgets, many agencies are fearful to implement solutions that would require significant investments and overhauls in their network infrastructure. This is why interoperability is so important for the National Guard, Air National Guard and other agencies. VTC solutions, such as those offered by TANDBERG, are interoperable and can function with network equipment from many different vendors. This ensures VTC solutions can be implemented without significant investments and overhauls in the datacenter.
It’s the National Guard and Air National Guard’s mission to protect America from attack and disaster. At TANDBERG, we’re excited to be a part of outfitting a new Guard, one that communicates in the most chaotic of situations and more effectively and efficiently completes their mission.
Interoperability a must for continued adoption of video conferencing
Jul 30 2009
Video conferencing has come a long way since the early 1990s when it was based on proprietary algorithms with PictureTel’s SG3/SG4, VTEL BlueChip, CLI CTX+ as well as several other algorithms and protocols. That was a time of lack of interoperability and a perception that the technology just didn’t work.
Today, we have a comprehensive portfolio of standards for both H.323 and SIP and customers, who enjoy the benefits of vendor choice while still being able to communicate with others. In a recent article in Telephony, the necessity of interoperability was addressed and some vendors are still saying it is not a “must”– which is exactly the failure which contributed to video conferencing losing steam in the 1990s.
Vendors that have been in this business for years realize the importance of interoperability and only vendors new to the business think that their proprietary way of doing it is better than working with the hundreds of thousands of installed units in the field. This is evident by the failure in connecting to the standards compliant world of H.323 and SIP devices. Some vendors started in the market just a few years ago and told the public there was no need to connect to “legacy” systems since those systems were of poor quality.
The reality is those “legacy” systems are capable of high definition at 1080p and 20kHz CD quality audio as well as many other things that have evolved since the 1990’s. And guess what – many companies don’t want, or can’t afford, to recreate their entire systems. Industry veterans have built the highest quality products available and have also maintained backwards compatibility to the installed base of H.323 and SIP devices by designing that ability natively into the devices. The new proprietary way of doing things is to do it your way and then sell a gateway that converts the new way to the standard way. Sounds good, but gateways simply do not scale.
In summary, proprietary methods have never stood the test of time in this industry, just as they’ve failed in so many other industries. Soon or later the vendors must converge for the technology to be successful and that convergence will be around worldwide standards. For telepresence to really take off, some of the new players in the industry need to get behind standards based devices. Lack of choice is rarely a good thing.
Next week DoDIIS is the place to be
May 10 2009
At next week’s DoDIIS Worldwide Conference, “Empowering Decision Advantage,” in Orlando, attendees will get to experience first-hand Tandberg’s New Way of Working.
With our immersive Telepresence T3 solution shown in Booth #405, participants will see how video teleconferencing (VTC) allows for accelerated decision-making and creates an environment in which real-time sharing of intelligence can take place between constituents in the field with strategy planners and policymakers.
In today’s increasingly global environment, that accelerated decision-making and real-time sharing of intelligence are key to the success of every mission. Here are some considerations you should discuss with your VTC provider to ensure your system will meet your needs today and tomorrow:
Interoperability — a great videoconferencing system is only as great as its ability to connect you with whom you need to connect– if your technology doesn’t work with the person you need to communicate with, then what’s the point? Make sure your VTC system is standards-based so that you can connect with anyone, anytime, and in any way. Don’t let disparate networks, multi-vendor systems, inconsistent quality and functional complexity keep your agency from completing its mission.
Scalability — big problems can require large groups of people to solve them. Make sure your VTC provider has an offering that can scale to accommodate multiple participants, so you can take high-definition or standard video systems into large interconnected conferences with a call from a desk system, to a PC, to a mobile device, to an immersive room-system for a true-to-life experience.
Ease of Use/Manageability — once you’ve installed a VTC system, you need to make sure that you understand how to use and manage it to ensure that you get the full benefit of your investment. Choosing a vendor includes picking a company that will support you from installation through deployment and can supply continued support. Don’t get left with a system that you can’t use effectively and easily.
Visit TANDBERG at DoDIIS (Booth #405) to see how close VTC can be to “real life.”