The contract has a three-year base with seven one-year options and is valued at $137 million with the potential to exceed $400 million over the contract life.
The advanced, state-of-the-art capabilities of our worldwide network played an indispensable role in DREN’s choice of Global Crossing to meet the Defense Department’s critical connectivity needs and applications, said Paul Kayatta, president, Global Crossing Government Markets. This DREN agreement represents a significant opportunity for Global Crossing to service the U.S. government and underscores the company’s commitment to helping governments worldwide meet their communication and connectivity needs.
The DREN network is the Department of Defense’s premiere long-haul communication service provider for the agency’s High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP). Utilizing its high-speed Internet backbone — the most advanced optical network — Global Crossing will design, develop and manage a state-of-the-art, secure, virtual private network for DREN. Users of the Department of Defense network will be able to communicate and collaborate in real time throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam and other U.S. territories.
The Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Director Defense Research & Engineering Science and Technology is investing a significant amount of funding in high performance computing to provide the United States military with a technological advantage to support warfighting requirements, said Rodger Johnson, program manager of DREN. DREN is the cornerstone of that effort and we are pleased to be working with Global Crossing to accomplish this mission so critical to our country and our military. DREN customers employ applications that require enormous computing capabilities. Global Crossing provides us with the network services to effectively collaborate online from every location.
Global Crossing will support the HPCMP by linking over 6,000 scientists and engineers at defense laboratories, test centers, universities and industry sites throughout the United States and beyond via the world’s largest, single, contiguous fiber-optic network. Connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region will be provided by Global Crossing’s affiliate, Asia Global Crossing.
Global Crossing will provide advanced data networking services, including: Internet Protocol (IP) service, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) service, and state-of-the-industry wavelength services, including video, audio, imaging and digital data. DREN also connects DoD’s high performance computing community to other governmental, research and academic networks.
In addition, Global Crossing will allow DREN users to fully exploit the emerging data transport benefits of multi-protocol label switching (MPLS). Global Crossing’s worldwide deployment of MPLS technology across a single autonomous system gives DREN subscribers increased capabilities in reliable, secure, low-latency transport across user-identified virtual private networks.
