Service ranks its IT priorities

Major programs

Top Contractors

Ann Miller, deputy assistant secretary of the
Navy for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence, electronic warfare
and space, has made the year 2000 problem and information assurance her top two
priorities.

Miller had been the Navy’s chief information officer
until earlier this month when Navy Secretary John Dalton reorganized the service’s
information technology shop. Miller retained the C4I job and Dan Porter was named CIO.

Miller had been responsible for developing the Navy’s IT
strategies, policies, plans, architectures, standards and guidance.

She discussed the Navy’s IT plans just before Dalton
announced the job changes.

Miller: As the chief
information officer, I have three primary areas I’m focusing on. The first is a
four-letter word—Y2K. But in my book, a close second is information assurance for the
warfighter. Those two are right there at the top. The third area is the issue of
interoperability.

The Information Technology for the 21st Century initiative is very much alive. IT-21 as
an initiative is not going away, but it’s not a program of record.

What I’m trying to do is take IT-21, which is a fleet-driven initiative that
doesn’t consider all of the Navy Department, and extend it. The Marine Corps, for
instance, unless their units are onboard ship, are not included in IT-21.

We’re looking at a technology infrastructure for the entire Navy that includes
other facilities in addition to the fleets. I don’t have a nice acronym for this
effort. But if I call it IT-21 people will look at the initiative and think it’s that
narrow.

The Information Technology Standards Guidance document that was recently approved
includes a lot of areas that the interim IT-21 standards did not. The Pacific and Atlantic
fleets looked at specific areas. What we tried to do with ITSG is look at the entire
protocol stack and a whole chapter on information protection.

It’s a more comprehensive view, but it doesn’t contradict any of the interim
standards. In fact, they’re all in there. It’s a matter of building on what
they’ve done and extending it rather than throwing it out. What we’re trying to
do is make ITSG a living, evolving document. That’s why it’s on the Web, and
we’ve put money aside to update it frequently.

I would be surprised, given the size and diversity of the department, if we’ll
ever get to a completely homogeneous computing platform for all users. We have real-time,
near real-time, and large-scale modeling and simulation requirements.

We’re looking at a balance between Unix and Microsoft Windows NT, but we also need
high-performance computing. We have a variety of needs that right now Unix best serves,
and I see it continuing.

We are talking with our sister services and the Defense Department about the idea of
leveraging our buying power DOD-wide. We’re currently exploring that option.
We’ve talked with lots of vendors.

There’s a definite advantage to consolidating even more, especially if we feel
that we don’t have as good a bargaining position with just Navy users.

Information Technology for the 21st
Century—The Navy will spend $1 billion over the next two years to modernize
the Atlantic and Pacific fleets with asynchronous transfer mode LANs aboard ships and
ashore. The ATM LANs will be capable of Fast Ethernet transmission rates of at least 100
Mbps. The service’s goal is a secure, global ATM network for 270,000 users worldwide.
The Navy’s fiscal 1999 budget requests $75 million for ship communication automation,
$169 million for satellite communications ship terminals and $72 million for shore
communications.

Voice Video and Data Program—Under the
Navy’s $2.9 billion VIVID contract, Lucent Technologies Inc. of Murray Hill, N.J.,
and GTE Government Systems Corp. of Needham, Mass., are providing telecommunications
hardware, software and services to Naval installations worldwide. Lucent is now designing
a metropolitan area network for the Norfolk, Va., region that will give the Navy an IT
infrastructure for voice and data services.

Super-Minicomputer 2—Litton PRC Inc. is
offering Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc. minicomputers, network servers,
Unix workstations, peripherals, software and systems integration services to all federal
agencies under this $2.5 billion contract, which runs through 2002.

PC LAN+—Electronic Data Systems Corp. is
the contractor for this $575 million contract providing local area and enterprise network
products, as well as training, integration and engineering services. All federal agencies
can buy products through 1999 and services through 2001.

Information Technologies Support Services—Under
this five-year, $250 million contract, Booz, Allen & Hamilton Inc. of McLean, Va.;
Computer Data Systems Inc. of Rockville, Md.; Lockheed Martin Corp.; Logicon Inc. of
Torrance, Calif.; Northrop Grumman Corp.; Litton PRC, and Science Applications
International Corp. of San Diego provide global ADP and telecommunications support for the
Navy and other services.

Tactical Advanced Computers IV—Hewlett-Packard
provides the Navy with workstations, portables, servers, software, peripherals, training
and maintenance under this $673 million contract.

The Navy’s latest estimate puts the cost of fixing the service’s year 2000
problem at nearly $444 million, according to figures it gave to the Office of Management
and Budget last month.

Of the Navy’s 898 mission-critical systems that need repair, 463 are still in the
assessment, renovation, validation and implementation phases.

“We have 24 mission-critical systems that right now are not expected to meet the
[Defense Department] specified date for being Y2K-compliant,” said Ann Miller, the
deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for command, control, communications, computers and
intelligence, electronic warfare and space. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean
they won’t be ready by Jan. 1, 2000.

“We are putting a lot of effort right now into the contingency and test
plans,” Miller said.

Because many systems are on ships that are often at sea, the Navy must schedule dock
time, which is difficult to do, for the remediation work, she said.

Using advanced computer-aided design software, the Navy-DARPA study will focus on
advanced payloads and sensor systems and overall designs that enhance a submarine’s
effectiveness.

The 18-month study will include multidisciplinary teams drawn from vendors with
expertise in command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance systems as well as weapons development and ship design.

Sailors who want to find former shipmates who have been redeployed and retired service
members who want to find out what happened to former colleagues can visit the site at
http://www.hislight.com/sailors to catch up with them.

The site has a chat room, a Hall of Memories dedicated to Navy personnel who died in
service and ships’ logs from the past.

Under the contract, the machines will be installed at 21 U.S. ports and 32 overseas
locations. 

Dan Porter
Chief Information Officer

Ron Turner
Deputy Chief Information Officer

Ann Miller
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and
Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Space

Rear Adm. John Gauss
Commander of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command

Vice Adm. Robert Natter
Director, Space, Information Warfare, Command and Control

Vice Adm. James Amerault
Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Logistics

Brig. Gen. Robert Shea
Marine Corps CIO and Deputy Chief  of Staff for Command, Control, Communications,
Computers and Intelligence