Vision for the future

As part of its ongoing modernization efforts, Shared Services Canada (SSC) continuously assesses technology trends and developments to ensure it builds and adjusts a Government of Canada (GC) network that is responsive to current and future needs.

To effectively deliver services to Canadians, GC users depend on fast, appropriately secured and reliable networks and expect to be able to connect to services from anywhere, at any time, regardless of the demand and circumstances. With the growth of cloud-based services across the GC, access to appropriately secured and high-quality network services has become even more important.

Then

At its creation in 2011, SSC received a big mandate to modernize and consolidate the GC information technology (IT) infrastructure. It inherited complex and aging network infrastructure from multiple organizations. This infrastructure was costly to maintain and did not support modern cloud, video and voice services.

Since then, SSC has consolidated and modernized network infrastructure through standardized technology and contracts. It has also enhanced connectivity infrastructure with the aim of achieving improved reliability, flexibility and security.

While there is no single “one-size-fits-all” approach for GC digital services, SSC works with its partners and clients to modernize their connectivity experience through consolidating and standardizing the options available to them. This results in more secure, stable and reliable connections, economies of scale, faster turnarounds, enhanced collaboration and reduced risk.‌

Now

With employees working part of the time from home and part of the time in a GC office, the increased need for secure remote access and new technology trends has changed the profile of the GC networks. A modernized approach provides both improved manageability and performance to enable the GC’s cloud adoption strategy.

SSC is modernizing GC network infrastructure and connectivity services by:

• broadening access to network coverage, allowing GC users in remote areas to stay connected to the GC network anywhere, anytime, and from any device
• improving resilience and creating a more secure IT environment through a comprehensive IT diversification strategy to reduce the risk associated with vendor lock-in and single-provider dependency
• relying on automation solutions to enable network self-healing and data traffic flow optimization
• installing Wi-Fi through a whole building approach, which has greatly improved our delivery timelines. As of November 2024, SSC has deployed Wi-Fi in over 1400 buildings, including many new installations over summer 2024 to support the increased presence in the workplace
• implementing enterprise software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) functionality to ease congestion, improve security, provide better application performance and reduce networking costs, ultimately resulting in improved user experience

These factors, coupled with the migration toward software-defined networking and improved wireless technology, have improved how SSC delivers and secures its connectivity services.