The government is often forced to make difficult choices between upgrading to more effective technology solutions, then swallowing the associated costs of replacing their existing IT infrastructure, or keeping their existing infrastructure to help mitigate near term costs. When you expand that cost-benefit analysis to the largest single U.S. government organization, the Department of Defense, the weight of those costs gets compounded that much more. For years government agencies, especially larger institutions, have had to choose between updated technology and near term cost savings, however, the latest step in IT’s evolution is allowing them to have both as technology is become more virtual and consolidated.
Large migrations of technology infrastructure, such as cloud migration, are usually associated with the type of evolutionary leaps in technology that large organizations, including government organizations, are beginning to take. But not all leaps from existing IT include systemic changes to the data center. Recently, the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Interoperation Test Command certified the Dell Unified Communications Services with its Private Branch Exchange-2 (PBX-2) to deliver the Microsoft Lync platform to DoD customers. This may not sound like a potential game changer on its face, but when you consider the size and scale of many of the organizations within DoD – that little change of consolidating communications infrastructure can add up…quickly.
So what does this mean exactly? Now, Dell Unified Communications and Collaborations consultants can use the Microsoft Lync platform as a tool to help simplify the IT and communications environments for its DoD customers by delivering an integrated solution that allows customers to eliminate legacy platforms and fully leverage Microsoft environments the majority of DoD organizations have already adopted. All of this is to say we can now easily deploy effective and powerful solutions that will help to make our customers more efficient and effective while also helping to save them money.
Consolidating communications platforms without the need for separate, expensive infrastructure and equipment most were forced to in the past is a very important tool DoD can use now to better share information, integrate with existing infrastructure and save money. Instead of having to spend up to $3,000 for each legacy communications system, they can quickly and easily begin to integrate Microsoft Lync into their existing IT hardware enabling a modern workforce through Polycom, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint. Take those small changes to how individuals communicate and apply them an organization the size of DoD and you’ve made a pretty significant change.
At Dell, we’re focused on our customers. The Dell cloud for US government provides a cloud infrastructure designed around federal security requirements (FISMA, DIACAP, FedRAMP), coupled with services to migrate existing environments to virtual or cloud environments – or we’re happy to move their communications platform to a modular Microsoft Lync platform. It’s about meeting their needs and doing so effectively. We’re proud to serve our customers at the Department of Defense in a number of different ways – and we’re equally proud to now add this very important service to that portfolio.