The next SIGNAL webinar will be held on Thursday, February 25, at 12:00 PM Eastern Time. The topic will focus on service portfolio management, which is new to the world of service management in ITIL V3. It provides the critical guidance to ensure that “the complete set of services that are being managed by a service provider” in terms of the value to the mission and the organizational value that they provide.

For more information and to register, visit the Web site.

As defense entities continue to virtualize their IT environments, they must revisit not only their security architectures but their policy and governance models, the subject of the next SIGNAL webinar on November 12 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

Join Dr. James Ransome of Cisco Systems as he explores how the three commonly accepted models for cloud-service delivery can be implemented to drive efficiencies while maintaining desired security levels.

For more information and to register, click here.

In today’s telephony environment, the U.S. Department of Defense needs to not only meet the legacy demands of its current TDM technology but also lead its organization to the future of end-to-end IP-centric communications on the GIG, the subject of the next SIGNAL webinar on October 29 at 1 p.m. Eastern Time.

Join Steve Anderson of Cisco Federal and Jeff Sinclair of PacStar as they discuss key innovations of the newest Small End Office (SMEO) solution, certified August 2009.

For more information and to register, click here.

Carrier Ethernet takes the dominant LAN technology—namely, Ethernet—and extends it onto Metro and Wide Area networks (MANs/WANs). This potent force greatly simplifies access to, and use of, IP traffic for mission-critical applications and services.

Please join co-presenter Chris Janson, coauthor of the book Carrier Ethernet for Dummies, and Lt. Col Jeff Verrant, USMCR, Ciena’s director of DOD business development, for “Carrier Ethernet 101 – A Primer on Carrier Ethernet for the DOD” on Thurs., Oct. 15, 2009, at 1:00 PM ET.

Attend and learn how Carrier Ethernet can simplify your networking infrastructure while enabling all kinds of interesting new capabilities, including enhanced reliability and availability, simultaneous legacy and advanced services, improved Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), and more. You’ll also become acquainted with the various types of Carrier Ethernet services available, the benefits they provide, and how to easily put them to work for your organization.

Discover how to:

• Understand Carrier Ethernet LAN (E-LAN)
• Make Carrier Ethernet work for you to deliver packet and circuit connectivity
• Use environmentally hardened data platforms for service aggregation and delivery
• Extend Virtual Private LAN services onto the backbone

Attendees will receive a free copy of Carrier Ethernet for Dummies. For more information and to register, click here.

The next SIGNAL Webinar will be held on September 24, 2009, at 12:00 PM Eastern.

Government agencies and departments around the globe are rapidly moving forward with their efforts of converging voice, data and video services onto a common IP infrastructure. The main force behind this accelerated transition to IP networks is a realization of the efficiency and cost savings from running multiple applications and services across a single infrastructure.

Sponsored by Juniper Networks, this seminar will focus on the capabilities and cost savings that might be possible with EoIP and the benefits of using one IP network for all applications, including voice, video and data traffic using circuit emulation as opposed to Voice over IP.

For more information and to register, visit Transport Your Voice and Circuit Switched Data Traffic Over IP Networks.

Next in SIGNAL’s webinar series, “Securing the Data Center: A DOD Architecture for Information Assurance” will take place on May 7, 2009 at 11:00 AM ET. Targeted attacks by hackers and insiders are aimed where they’ll do the most damage and where the most valuable assets are located – the agency data center. Government agencies can increase protection and reduce operational costs when security issues are considered at the very beginning of data center planning. So it’s ironic that data center security is often an afterthought. A well thought-out defense-in-depth strategy includes multiple layers of security and different overlapping technologies.

Attendees will learn how a secure data center architecture can:

• Enable secure rollout of Web 2.0 and SOA services
• Achieve Policy and Regulatory Compliance
• Protect Data and Communication Integrity & Privacy
• Enable Secure Email and Web Transactions
• Prevent Data Leakage and Disclosure
• Provide Comprehensive Threat Control

Panelists include:

• Rich Campbell, Senior Systems Engineer, Cisco Data Center Solutions
• Andrew Benhase, Consulting Systems Engineer, Cisco Security Solutions
• Michael Jones, Federal Security Services Manager, Cisco Federal Services

For additional details, including how to register, click here.

Managing virtual environments is becoming more complex, Federal initiatives are piling on, and your organization’s infrastructure is what it is. Is the promise of virtualization a pipe dream? How do you manage it all and keep your sanity?

This webinar, to be held March 19, 2009, at 12 noon ET, will explore:

• Weaving virtual environment into existing infrastructures
• The eight common government initiatives and which ones really matter, including Green IT and Continuity of Operations
• Compelling management solutions
• Protecting existing management investments
• Real-world examples of delivering on the promise of virtualization

Join SIGNAL Magazine Editor-in-Chief Robert K. Ackerman on March 19, 2009, 12 noon, for a conversation on these topics with Michael Biddick, CTO at Windward IT Solutions, an operational management consulting firm based in Herndon, Va., and a contributing editor for InformationWeek magazine.

Michael specializes in ITIL best-practice frameworks for business service management, eTOM-focused operational support systems, application performance management, and monitoring systems for managed service providers. He previously served as Director of Technology for the University of Wisconsin Law School. Michael earned a Master’s of Science from Johns Hopkins University and dual Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Registration for the webinar is here.

SIGNAL’s next webinar will be on February 26 at 11 a.m. and features Kurt Dickey, Unified Communications Specialist at Cisco Federal. From the description:

Organizations that maintain separate voice and data networks are confronted with the challenge of increasing productivity while reducing costs.

One answer to this challenge is deploying a converged network unified communications solution. In order to be effective, such a solution must offer flexible and sophisticated functionality and framework that permits rapid deployment of emerging applications such as desktop IP telephony, unified messaging, telepresence, mobility, desktop collaboration, enterprise application integration with IP phone displays, and collaborative IP contact centers. These applications enhance productivity and increase enterprise revenues.

Learn more and register here.

The next SIGNAL Webinar, “Data at Rest Protection: An Integral Part of an Enterprise Data Protection Strategy,” will be on Tuesday, December 9 at 12 Eastern. Here’s the description:

Government agencies and enterprises require an Enterprise Data Protection (EDP) solution to effectively secure their data from the “core” where key data repositories exist, across networks, and all the way to the “edge” where the data is used – a perimeter defense will no longer suffice in today’s world. A truly comprehensive EDP solution includes database / server encryption, network encryption, key management systems, disk & file encryption, and authentication tokens.

This webinar will focus on one element of Enterprise Data Protection, the role of data at rest protection in encrypting your sensitive data and allowing you to save money in the process. Encrypting the data ensures that it cannot be compromised while it is residing on databases, laptops, or file servers. Encrypting data also ensures that it is rendered useless to the attacker should a security breach occur.

Click here to register.