ACT-IAC’s Networks & Telecommunications Community of Interest (COI)
presents…
“The Wizardry of NaaS: Understanding Network-as-a-Service & What’s Driving It?”
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
10 am – 11 am ET
NaaS has been called a cloud-based service model, allowing organizations to rent networking services from cloud providers. It has also been called an extension of managed software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) solutions. How is NaaS best defined? How is NaaS best deployed? Should my organization adopt Naas? Join our lively, educational and on the record discussion to get the answers to your NaaS questions.
Moderated by Steven Brand, Deputy CIO for Resource Management, Department of Energy
Panelists:
- Ted Corbett, VP Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations, Gartner
- Jim Kennedy, IT Program Manager, Enterprise Technology Solutions, GSA
- Robert Sears, Director, N-Wave Program, NOAA, & Chair, Federal IPv6 Task Force
Join us for this “must attend”, virtual N&T COI event on August 20!
Note: This is a virtual event. Meeting details will be provided upon registration via email.
About The Panelists
Ted Corbett is an Analyst within Gartner's Information Technology Leaders team, focusing on infrastructure and operations. Mr. Corbett primarily performs research and advises on managed network services, NOC, professional services and networking/operations execution for multinational corporations and service providers.
Before joining Gartner, Mr. Corbett led product management, software engineering, R&D, NOC and DC operations and IT for managed NOC outsourcing providers. He also led professional services design, planning and delivery execution of managed network/IT services and network management outsourcing deals. He is a veteran of several startups, including carrier OSS/BSS managed services, financial services SaaS, contact center social media software and MSP consulting. He holds a BA in Computer Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a former USMC Sergeant (SIGINT).
Jim Kennedy serves as an Information Technology Program Manager providing technology expertise to government agencies desiring SATCOM, earth observation, and mobility services for the Technical Account Management Division under the Office of Enterprise Technology Solution, within the Office of Information Technology Category (ITC) in GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service.
The Federal Acquisition Service provides buying platforms and acquisition services to federal, state, local and tribal governments for a broad range of items from office supplies to motor vehicles, to information technology and telecommunications products and services. ITC provides access to a wide range of commercial and custom IT products, services and solutions.
Mr. Kennedy joined GSA in 2022. He has over 10 years of experience providing technical assistance and being a subject matter expert for various IT-related technologies, including time as a Vulnerability Analysis and a Desktop Support Specialist for the University of Michigan Health System. While with U-M Health, he configured, installed, and troubleshooted IT devices and equipment, and assessed new and existing systems on the network from a security perspective for their hospital and clinics throughout the state of Michigan.
Mr. Kennedy holds a B.S. in electronic engineering technology from Eastern Michigan University, and M.S. in Information Technology from Purdue University.
Robert Sears is the Director of N-Wave, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Enterprise Network program. N-Wave operates within the NOAA Office of the Chief Information Officer to align and execute on NOAA's strategic plan for network transport and optimization. It offers a diverse portfolio of enterprise networking services, including a NOAA operated and managed national and international wide area network, NOAA Trusted Internet Connection Access Points, and multiple nationwide NOAA campus networks. Through these services, N-Wave supports critical operations and research missions for NOAA, Department of Commerce bureaus, Department of Defense and other government agencies through highly available, secure, high-speed network transport and services.
Robert serves in several capacities in a variety of government and industry professional organizations. He is the Chair of the Federal IPv6 Task Force, established by the Federal Chief Information Officers Council (CIOC), with a goal to communicate and provide resources to Federal agencies, industry and other stakeholders on Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) only adoption among federal agencies. He is also the Federal Network Representative Co-Chair for the Cloud and Infrastructure Community of Practice (C&I CoP), chartered under the Federal CIOC, and formed to provide IT practitioners with information about application rationalization, data center optimization and federal cloud computing. He is the Government Chair for the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) Networks and Telecommunications Community of Interest (N&T COI) and serves as a member of the ACT-IAC Climate Change Workgroup High-Performance Computing Project, which have an overall mission to improve government through the effective and innovative application of technology.
Mr. Sears has 33 years of combined military and federal service. His Naval career involved supporting Submarine Squadron Twenty-Two during Operation Desert Storm as an electronics calibration technician; duty assignment with Command Second Fleet on the USS Mount Whitney supporting meteorological systems, communications and surface and air RADAR; and a transition to networking and IT services at the Naval Atlantic Meteorology and Oceanography Center. His career with NOAA spans 22 years with over 10 of those years leading the N-Wave program. Mr. Sears’s background and degree are in electronic engineering and communications.
Steven R. Brand serves as the Deputy Chief Information Officer for Resource Management, in the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). In this capacity, he provides executive oversight and customer-focused strategic guidance for human capital and administrative management; financial management, budget formulation and internal controls; and acquisition management. Via collaboration across the enterprise, Mr. Brand leads the alignment of these functions and activities with OCIO and Departmental priorities, for effective and efficient mission execution.
Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Brand served in a number of roles at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), to include serving as the Director, Office of Information Technology Acquisition, leading the efficient execution of nearly 7,000 contract actions, worth nearly $2B annually. Before taking on that role, Mr. Brand served as the Director, Procurement Policy for the IRS. In this role, he managed a portfolio that included, leading the development of agency-wide procurement policies and procedures and compliance monitoring, as well as management and oversight of small business engagement, contract quality assurance (for over $2B in annual contract actions), contract cost and price analysis, risk management, and strategic leadership of the Treasury Acquisition Institute (TAI).
Mr. Brand joined the IRS, after serving as the Deputy Director, Business Administration for the Army Information Technology Agency. In that capacity, he provided leadership and guidance for a broad scope of functions, to include acquisition management, financial management, and human capital management. He also served as the Deputy Director of Budget, Finance and Acquisition (BFA), for the Department of Homeland Security’s, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications, overseeing a budget and annual acquisitions of $1B; and he served as the Director, Acquisitions for the Office of the National Communications System (NCS).
Mr. Brand is retired from the United States Marine Corps. He holds a Master of Computer Science degree, from the Naval Postgraduate School. He also earned a Bachelor of Science, in Human Resources, and a Bachelor of Arts, in Political Science from The Ohio State University.
United States