Breaking News Daily

The National Institutes of Health recently chose an application to test the year 2000
readiness of some 20,000 desktop systems in 24 NIH agencies.

NIH bought ClickNet Y2K from PinPoint Software Corp. of San Jose, Calif., said Sandra
Bond, a computer specialist at NIH’s Center for Information Technology. NIH paid
$300,000.

The year 2000 readiness effort, which will take place over the next several months,
includes surveying the software on PCs and Macintoshes, checking the BIOS and real-time
clock on each machine, Bond said.

NIH’s IT Center employees took training classes on ClickNet and other year 2000
software tools last month, said Bond, who developed and supervised the training program.

ClickNet is an automated inventory and network documentation tool that can monitor year
2000 readiness of networked hardware and software. The application can track more than
7,000 programs, Bond said.

The application’s resolution feature compiles information on hardware and software
readiness, rates the severity of nonreadiness and suggests corrective action such as
upgrades or code patches.

The Defense Information Systems Agency has awarded a $165 million contract to Unisys
Corp. for 24 Unisys ClearPath enterprise servers, operating system software and 10 EMC
Symmetrix 5700 disk storage subsystems.

DISA will install the equipment at Defense Department megacenters in Montgomery, Ala.,
Ogden, Utah, Oklahoma City and San Antonio.

The servers will replace about 70 old systems and let the department continue running
some of its legacy applications, Defense officials said.

The servers can run Microsoft Windows NT or Unix. Each Symmetrix 5700, from EMC Corp.
of Hopkinton, Mass., has 7 terabytes of storage.

The National Archives and Records Administration has decided to postpone a new rule
that would require agencies to save administrative systems records.

NARA’s Electronic Records Workgroup decided the proposed rule needs extensive
revision and cannot be completed by Sept. 30, NARA officials said. The workgroup will
submit the rest of its recommendations on archiving electronic records to archivist John
Carlin by Sept. 14.

The workgroup has been considering plans to replace NARA’s General Records
Schedule 20, which lets agencies delete electronic records once they are saved in another
format.

A copy of the proposal can be found on the workgroup’s Web site at http://www.nara.gov/records/grs20.

The first copies of JavaOS for Business, a thin-client, transaction-oriented operating
system for network computers, became available to users last month.

Officials of IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. said the server-based OS is an
economical alternative to PC operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, for running
large transaction-based applications. About 1,200 business applications are available for
JavaOS, a joint project of the two companies.

IBM, which has become an active Java developer, expects to deliver JavaOS on all its
Network Station computers early next year. About the same time, Sun will ship its
JavaStation NC complete with JavaOS, Sun officials said.Sun Starfire will map genes

The National Center for Genome Resources, one of two federally funded U.S. repositories
for genome sequences and bioinformatics software, has acquired a 64-processor Ultra
Enterprise 10000 Starfire server from Sun Microsystems Inc.

The Santa Fe, N.M., center supports federal researchers and other scientists around the
world engaged in mapping the genetic makeup of humans, other animals, plants and microbes,
NCGR spokeswoman Janine Hagerman said.

The server will run computationally intensive applications such as phylogenetic tree
programs and other programs that search DNA sequences for patterns.

The Starfire server has 64 333-MHz UltraSparc processors and runs SunSoft Solaris 2.6
and Sun’s HPC 2.0 load-balancing cluster software.

The server will have a direct T3 fiber connection when the Energy Department-funded
center completes a network upgrade, Hagerman said.

The Navy has negotiated a blanket purchasing agreement for

an enterprise license that covers selected products from Microsoft Corp.

The Information Technology Umbrella Program, in partnership with the Office of the Navy
Chief Information Officer, negotiated the BPA with schedule reseller ASAP Software Express
Inc. of Buffalo Grove, Ill.

Through the $166 million BPA, ASAP Software will sell Navy, Marine Corps and Coast
Guard buyers server software, documentation and CD-ROM media.

The agreement also includes Microsoft client products such as Office Professional,
Office Standard, Windows 95 Upgrade, Windows NT Workstation Upgrade and BackOffice Client
Access. The government users can also buy Upgrade Advantage maintenance for the products.

All items on the BPA are priced separately.

For more information, visit ASAP Software’s Web site at http://www.asapsoftware.com.

The Labor Department’s Employment Standards Administration has awarded a $30
million contract to Orkand Corp. of McLean, Va., to continue providing technical support
services.

Orkand has supported 20 ESA sites nationwide for the past five years.

The company has more than 170 staff members working on the project, including a project
manager in Washington and a mix of systems managers, LAN managers, computer operators and
data entry operators, said Jack Savage, director of corporate development for Orkand.

The new contract is for one year with three option years. Orkand plans to add staff to
provide more LAN support, said Ed Firth, chief operating officer for the company.

The standards administrtation does not have a centralized help desk function, Firth
said.

The Defense Information Systems Agency has awarded Harris Corp. a $75 million contract
to provide around-the-clock corrective, preventive and on-call maintenance for the Secure
Video Teleconferencing System.

Under the five-year contract, Harris will provide support hardware and software at a
cost of $1.6 million a year and engineering support for $13.5 million a year.

The Defense Department developed the network in 1985; the bulk of the Harris contract
work will be in the Washington area.

—Frank Tiboni, John L. Guerra, Christopher J. Dorobek, Florence Olsen, Gregory
Slabodkin and Merry Mayer.