Experience with the Department of Labor (DOL)

SeNet was tasked by DOL to manage and operate the Network Operations Center (NOC) for a wide area network (WAN) comprised of more than 140 Local Area Networks interconnected by a dedicated frame relay network and serving approximately 3500 end users (OSHANET).  The network is centrally managed and the NOC houses infrastructure and application-specific servers and network/telecommunications equipment running a various operating systems, to include Unix, Linux, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000.

SeNet faced the difficult task of transitioning from a previous contractor in only five days.  The environment inherited had little documentation and few Standard Operating Procedures.  SeNet began making improvements upon assumption of responsibility.  SeNet’s transition approach was based on deploying a temporary core team of seasoned network engineers and system administrators from its own staff.  The staff was expanded to a full capacity of 12 and organized into five core teams : Management Team, Network Infrastructure Team, Servers Operations Team, Email Operations Team and Security Operations Team. All team members were cross-trained, and the teams had overlapping responsibilities.

Under a different contract, SeNet provided third-party independent verification and validation (IV&V) support to OSHA that was in the process of modernizing its information resources.  The goal was to transition from its legacy stand alone systems into a new suite of web-based applications.  This task required our team to work closely with the client as well as with three other contractors directly responsible for the development process.  Although our primary task was limited to one aspect (IT security), our team studied the entire environment, including end-users, administration and hardware/software deployment and operations.  Our major contributions, while driven by security concerns, prompted the client and the other contractors to re-think some of the new applications’ implementation processes and deployment techniques.  They later added enhancements, which served to streamline and improve the suite’s suitability to the organization’s needs.  Because of our involvement, SeNet established its role with the client and with the other contractors as a team player rather than as an external auditor of their efforts.