Compaq, releasing Version 7.2, signals support for OpenVMS
OpenVMS users can expect Compaq Computer Corp. to support their applications for the foreseeable future, company officials promised this month. Compaq brought out Version 7.2 of the OpenVMS operating system and a single-processor, $19,000 AlphaServer DS20. The server comes loaded with either OpenVMS 7.2 or Tru64 Unix, the renamed Digital Unix that Compaq acquired along with Digital Equipment Corp. a year ago.
Navy finds place for ATM and Gigabit Ethernet on nets
SAN DIEGO—When it comes to large-scale enterprises, the Navy will stick with asynchronous transfer mode technology for backbone connectivity. But newer technologies such as Gigabit Ethernet, which offers a tenfold increase in transmission speed over Fast Ethernet's 100 Mbps, are finding their way into some of the Navy's small and midsize networks.
Learn to speak the language of this blossoming technology field
Not sure of the difference between a data mart and a data warehouse? You're not alone. Federal users who look to data warehousing for information retrieval must struggle with a new lexicon. As they set up and learn to use the multimillion-dollar warehouses, they're often perplexed by shades of meaning. "You have to be alert because there are so many overlapping definitions and slight differences in meaning," said Wendel Yale, a technical manager at Oracle Corp.
Ohio VA centers call on videoconferencing system
Veterans Affairs Department medical centers in Ohio expect immediate returns when their new asynchronous transfer mode WAN begins to carry voice, video and data. "We estimate we could save $600,000 to $700,000 a year in staff travel time by having a videoconferencing system," said Hank Rappaport, chief information officer for Ohio's Veterans Information Systems Network.
Air Force drops Desktop IDIQs
In an about-face on acquisition, the Air Force recently set a policy to meet its PC, server and communications needs through blanket purchasing agreements. The policy announcement by the Standard Systems Group at Maxwell Air Force Base's Gunter Annex, Ala., marks the end of the line for the Air Force's famed Desktop contracts, which heralded widespread use of indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity procurements throughout government.
Supercomputing's next frontier strains software
Paul Messina, senior adviser for Energy's Accelerated Strategic gic Computing Initiative, said this month at a conference at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., that ASCI is spending $100 million a year to stretch existing, sequentially programmed applications so that they can run over thousands of processors.
Energy, Intel collaborate on space-ready Pentium CPU
The Air Force Research Laboratory, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Reconnaissance Office and Sandia National Laboratories will cooperate in the design project. Sandia handles microelectronics R&D for DOE. NASA will use the radiation-hardened processors in space probes to Jupiter's moon Europa, which has a liquid ocean, icecaps and heavy radiation, said Robert S. Blewer, deputy director of strategic partnerships at Sandia's Microelectronics Center in Albuquerque, N.M.
This data warehouse creates a virtual Noah's Ark
TUCSON, Ariz.—Under the banner of the National Gap Analysis Project, the Geological Survey has for the last 12 years began mobilizing an army of biological detectives to discover plant and animal species that are endangered or are about to be, that should be thriving but aren't. Their detection tool is a data warehouse.
Army prepares to open ordering on Infrastructure Support 1 buy
After staving off an agency-level protest, the Army is preparing to begin taking orders for its Infrastructure Support 1 contract with Telos Corp. On Feb. 5, Army Materiel Command officials dismissed and denied a protest by Vanstar Government Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va., said Lee Harvey, division chief at the Communications-Electronics Command's Acquisition Center-Washington.
Seven Interior employees honored for work in systems development
The Interior employees received their awards at a recent GCN Forum luncheon in Washington. Honored were:
No risk, no gain
What if they had a procurement and nobody came? To some extent, that is what is happening at the General Services Administration. It is trying to launch a national digital certificate project, Access Certificates for Electronic Services. No vendors are clamoring to bid on ACES even though GSA has made many revisions to its request for proposals. The haggling dates back nearly a year. The need for a uniform approach to digital signatures in the
GSA official to naysayers: Federal EC is here
Despite the conventional wisdom that electronic commerce has been slow to develop, one key proponent said the world of the electronic government is already here. There have been some radical changes in the way government does business, said G. Martin Wagner, associate administrator of the General Services Administration's Office of Governmentwide Policy.
Data warehousing tools
The term data warehousing was coined just six years ago by W.H. Inmon, a noted database expert and founder of Pine Cone Systems Inc. of Edgewood, Colo. Though widely used, it's also largely misunderstood. Before we look at specific types of data warehousing tools, let's clarify a few terms.
Reports tie IT weaknesses to agencies' problems | GCN
A set of reports recently sent to Congress point up flaws in government management and identify troubled information technology efforts as interlinked with the problems. In one report, the inspectors general of 24 agencies listed what they consider the government's most serious management and performance problems. Meanwhile, in a series of reports on government's riskiest programs, the General Accounting Office said most agencies lack clear systems architectures, making it difficult for them to build interoperable systems.
Product Reviews
As with most product claims, you have to study the small print. The good news: Small print is legible with all these printers. The last time I reviewed high-end network laser printers [GCN, June 28, 1997, Page 37], the test machines were difficult to network. I applaud Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp. and Xerox Corp. for making printer administration much easier.
Customs asks: Can ports work if computers fail?
The Customs Service will soon switch exclusively to pen and paper at one of its ports—at least for a day. The test is to see how a port will function if it does not have computers for a day, headquarters spokesman Dennis Murphy said. Interestingly, year 2000 preparation is not the driving force behind the test, although the result could help with the agency's year 2000 contingency planning.
House reform committee drops 'oversight' from its name only
The start of the 106th Congress has seen a change in the name of the House committee that is the chief overseer of government information technology policy. During its organizational meeting this month, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee officially shortened its name to the House Government Reform Committee. Committee members said they agreed to the change in part to avoid confusion with the House Oversight Committee. The new name reflects no change in the work
Group plans satellite network to tap virtual data warehouses
Using a constellation of 288 low-Earth-orbiting-satellites, Teledesic LLC and its partners will create the world's first network to provide affordable, worldwide fiber-like access to telecommunications. Called the Teledesic Network, the $9 billion project will enable broadband telecommunications access for business, schools and individuals everywhere on the planet and will allow easy access to giant virtual data warehouses.
Briefing Book
Son of Star Wars. The Defense Department plans to spend $6.6 billion over the next six years developing a system to protect the continental United States from ballistic missile attack. Officials say the National Missile Defense System will include a satellite sensor to detect missile launches, an early-warning radar to track flight paths, a ground radar to target missiles and a ground-launched interceptor to destroy them.
IBM's Microdrive, world's smallest drive, stores up to 340M of data
At a size of 1 inch square by 5 millimeters thick and a weight of 20 grams, IBM Corp.'s minuscule Microdrive can store up to 340M of data. The Microdrive conforms to the CompactFlash Type II standard and has a platter with a read/write/seek head. Its form factor is the same as for solid-state flash memory cards used in digital cameras, but the Microdrive has more than five times the capacity. It is about one-third
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.
Manage Consent Preferences
Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link
If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.
Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.
Cookie List
A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:
Strictly Necessary Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Functional Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Performance Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Sale of Personal Data
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
Social Media Cookies
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
Targeting Cookies
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.