Navy CIO: No Fear of Integration
By Bob Brewin | Friday, June 22, 2007 | 03:29 PM
By Bob Brewin | Friday, June 22, 2007 | 03:29 PM
Virginia Beach, VA – Any IT system developer will tell you: When you integrate existing systems, there's a high probability that the system will have bugs and glitches, which if serious enough could make the bigger system inoperable.
But Rob Carey, the chief information officer for the Navy, says the department’s plan to integrate four huge communications systems into a single global network will work. Carey, who spoke here at the Transformation Warfare Conference sponsored by AFCEA International and the U.S. Naval Institute, said many global corporations already run all-encompassing networks effectively.
The Navy wants to combine four existing communications networks: the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, which serves installations in the United States; One-Net, which serves overseas installations; IT-21, which serves afloat users; and the Marine Corps Enterprise Network. The combined system would is called the Navy’s Next Generation Enterprise Network [http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=35978&dcn=todaysnews]
NMCI, managed by EDS under a $9.3 billion contract which expires in 2010, is already the word’s largest Intranet, and combining the other three large networks would not create an unwieldy mass, Carey said.
Carey said the networks need to be integrated because communications are difficult for deployed units and personnel in Iraq. Carey, who is a Commander in the Naval Reserve and served last year in Fallujah, Iraq, with the Seabees, said accessing information in the United States from Iraq “was not impossible, but it was hard.”
Carey declined to provide a timeline for developing the next generation network acquisition strategy except to say it needed to be soon to have the network in place by 2010, when the NMCI contract expires.
Comments
NMCI is a disaster. I really can't think of anyone who actually uses it to be happy with its performance, reliability, and the responsiveness of the help desk at resolving issues. The fact that the ClINNs end up using Microsoft's OS and Applications, exposes users to multiple patches and upgrades which increase the memory footprint on their systems gradually degrading performance. Because the end user's hardware such as RAM is not upgraded.
Since the Software is proprietary and not open source the Navy has no control over what bugs are to be fixed. Since the software used is proprietary (Vendorware) it is more expensive.
Lots of noise has been made by the Brass that reducing the IT infrastructure and having one big network administered by a Vendor would improve productivity.
Tell me...is it very productive to sit for an average of 45 minutes every day waiting for a system to boot up because everything is running on virtual memory due to all of the [programs] EDS loads onto the machines of end users?
If a base's billing rate is an average of $100 per hour, and the Navy has 100,000 Civil Servants waiting an average of 20 minutes for their systems just to boot up with an average work year of about 2000 hours...how much money does that translate into over a year? Something over $6 Billion per year ..spent .. waiting ... This is the cost of a Nimitz Class Carrier...
Dosn't sound too Savvy to me...
To do what is suggested here will require taking change, flexibility and market savvy. NMCI has given us a few good things: Processes, common hardware, application reduction. Now we must take ownership of our networks to get the next piece done. The corporate world views IT as a utility, the DoD views IT as a strategic asset – we have systems that are proprietary and unique to warfighting. Unlike the commercial world were systems are shared. NMCI has not allowed us to merge our tactical networks with any level of fidelity. We will need to take back control of our systems management. We have to be responsible and not outsource everything – we have to be more flexible. Our next contract needs to ensure we can bring on a new vendor if one is not up to the job. We should use market forces to our advantage.
dod1 | Monday, June 25, 2007 | 04:16 PMABOUT THIS BLOG
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