It may well be the most popular World Wide Web site in the Defense Department. Run by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, ACQWeb is also the most sluggish, needing about 15 minutes to load a file during peak usage times. Under a "Why so slow?" link on the home page, the sysop explains that ACQWeb runs on a Sun Microsystems Inc. Sparcstation IPC capable of handling a maximum of
It may well be the most popular World Wide Web site in the Defense Department. Run by
the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, ACQWeb is also
the most sluggish, needing about 15 minutes to load a file during peak usage times.
Under a "Why so slow?" link on the home page, the sysop explains that ACQWeb
runs on a Sun Microsystems Inc. Sparcstation IPC capable of handling a maximum of 25,000
hits a month. But the ACQWeb average is closer to 500,000 hits monthly--yes, half a
million.
It's easy to see why. ACQWeb is a gateway to dozens of juicy sites--from the principal
deputy for test and evaluation to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization--otherwise
not known for accessibility. ACQWeb has put in a request for a new Web server, but
according to the sysop, "the constraints of the government acquisition process"
are, well, holding things up. To cruise the site at http://www.acq.osd.mil/acqweb, the
low period is between 2 and 4 a.m.
Don't expect an enthusiastic announcement from the National Security Agency, but the
policy that will let users of the first Fortezza encryption cards exchange e-mail on
topics slightly more sensitive than the latest Redskins game is slowly taking shape.
Draft certification requirements, known as the Interim Multilevel Information Systems
Security Initiative for Classified, are trickling through the NSA bureaucracy and have
been sent to Defense Message System contractor Loral Corp. NSA originally pitched Fortezza
as good for unclassified information only. DMS will require Fortezza card use when it
begins deployment next year.
Army Col. Oscar White, the former chief of system network operations in the Defense
Information Systems Agency's Operations Directorate or D3, has been named assistant deputy
director for DISA's D5 unit, the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate.
At D3, White oversaw programs such as the Defense Information Infrastructure Control
Concept, a system for visualizing global network assets through a single terminal. Now,
he'll be in on the long-range infrastructure planning at DISA.
Government Technology Services Inc. has added a 1G hard drive and a quad-speed CD-ROM
drive to the basic configuration of its 100-MHz Pentium PC sold on the Air Force's Desktop
IV contract. Zenith Data Systems Corp. shares the contract with GTSI.
Desktop IV is in the final months of ordering under a 100,000 system contract
extension. The Air Force plans to award the follow-on contract, Desktop V, early next
year.