DOD COMPUTING | BRIEFING BOOK
Simulation milestone. The Defense Department's Joint Simulation System has reached its first milestone. Build Zero, a recent software design review, successfully demonstrated that JSIMS' basic architecture works. JSIMS is a modeling and simulation tool that integrates Army, Navy and Air Force systems. The $150 million program combines the services' next-generation models, including the Army's War Simulation-2000, the Air Force's National Air and Space Model, and the Navy's Maritime System, into a collaborative system. TRW Inc. provides JSIMS'
ENTERPRISE COMPUTING
Paper is cheap, paper archival isn't Archival medium/Estimated cost per megabyte Paper: $10.00 Microfiche: $1.20 12-inch WORM optical disk: 0.11 51/4-inch optical disk: 0.09 Near-line archival tape: 0.01 WORM optical disks once were the only electronic storage media approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now the write-once, read-many-times media faces lower-cost competition from tape cartridges that mimic WORM disks, according to a storage industry official.
Put paper in its place: a permanent round file, contends the furry one
No matter how diligently he adheres to the touch-each-page-only-once mantra, the Rat still finds himself needing a backhoe to dig out his lead-lined cubicle every three months. Electrons the furry one can deal with. Molecules, he can't. So the cyberrodent seems like a natural when agency brass wanted to detail someone to look into electronic payments and transactions.
New desktop computing products
Agencies that deal directly with citizens on corrections or social service issues, or that prefer biometrics to passwords for network log-ins, can buy a PC fingerprint reader from Compaq Computer Corp. The biometric reader captures minute characteristics of a user's fingerprint, rather than the fingerprint image, for storage on a server running Microsoft Windows Server 4.0, said Michael Takemura, Compaq product marketing manager.
AF awards $486 million in training contracts
The Aeronautical Systems Center this month awarded five vendors contracts worth $486 million jointly to develop training systems for the Air Force. The vendors—Boeing Co.; Camber Corp. of Huntsville, Ala.; Intelx Corp. of Leesburg, Va.; Lockheed Martin Corp.; and Raytheon Training Inc. of Irving, Texas—will provide the Air Force with systems, courseware, training and support.
USGS opens gateway to Earth
Before the Geological Survey teamed with Microsoft Corp. to set up the TerraServer Web site, USGS had never tried to put so much data online over the Internet. The earth science agency typically distributes its aerial image data on CD-recordable disks or 8-mm tapes, or stages it over the network using the File Transfer Protocol.
Plug-in will let you become a sophisticated mapmaker
Pros and cons: + Best of GIS and graphics creation + Many tools for map enhancement – Lot of training and resources required Real-life requirements: Adobe Illustrator under Win9x, NT or Mac OS; 200-MHz processor; 64M of RAM; 17-inch monitor; at least 4M free on hard drive
GAO: Pentagon must play larger role in Force XXI
The Army so far has exercised acquisition oversight over its Force XXI battlefield digitization initiative, but the General Accounting Office contends that should change. Defense Department senior management should scrutinize the cost and schedule risks related to creating the first digitized battlefield, GAO said in a report late last month. At the heart of the Army's battlefield digitization effort is the Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade and Below (FBCB2) program. For the FBCB2 program, the service is
Congress weighs bill to protect data ownership
Not everyone is happy about the way that the Internet has expanded the ability to find, use and download information from all over the globe. Some database owners worry that the Internet and the law have combined to undermine their ability to profit from information products. In response, they have partially pushed through Congress a new database protection bill that could affect the price and availability of data.
There will be fewer protests unless there are more
In case you missed it, I'll tell you what happened at a recent symposium on bid protests held by the American Bar Association's Section on Public Contract Law last month. The participants were lawyers, agency officials, contractors, folks from the General Accounting Office and even judges from the Court of Federal Claims. Like a bomber crew in a World War II movie, every interest group was represented.
Data from Indian Affairs GIS helps 200 tribes manage their land
A tribe can get information only about the land it owns. American Indian tribes now have access to a geographic information system for land planning, thanks to a free service from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The bureau's Geographic Data Service Center in Denver maintains a database of aerial photographs, maps and other data sets that tribes nationwide can access with minimum technology, bureau officials said.
FAA: Aged mainframes are good to go for 2000
The old IBM Corp. mainframes that the Federal Aviation Administration uses to host directional and radar applications for the nation's air traffic control systems are ready for the year 2000, an FAA official said last week. We looked at over 1 million lines of microcode in the hosts and found that it will transition to the millennium in a routine fashion," FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said.
The sky will not fall - EDITORIAL
If the year 2000 problem was a giant asteroid, it would probably be flaming out in the upper atmosphere about now. A few embers would hit a roof here and there, but society could exhale. We're not out of the woods yet on 2000, but there are signs that the professional scare consultants ought to find other work.
GSA gets quick payback from antitheft app
In a matter of months, a General Services Administration office in Atlanta recouped the $6,000 investment it made in notebook PC theft prevention software. GSA and federal law enforcement officials in Atlanta earlier this year recovered three stolen notebook computers, breaking up a ring of PC thieves in the process. The Federal Protective Service traced the stolen notebooks using CompuTrace software from Absolute Software Corp. of Vancouver, British Columbia.
ImageCast Deluxe speeds up the configuration of multiple PCs
Price: $250 for 25-license pack; $795 for 100-pack and unlimited multicasting to limited number of target machines Pros and cons: + Multicast fast and reliable + Easy to set up host and destination PCs – Supports only Ethernet multicasts – Backup utility slow Real-life requirements: Win9x or NT, Ethernet connection for multicast, CD-ROM drive
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GCN column is required reading Walter R. Houser's column, "Microsoft's vigilance makes it king of the desktop" [GCN, June 29, Page 24], is right on track and should be required reading at the Defense Information Systems Agency. Even with the closing of the Ada Joint Program Office, the community ignoring DISA's demand for Open Systems Interconnection over TCP/IP, the agency's vision that everything is going to Unix, the millions
ENTERPRISE COMPUTING - NEW PRODUCTS
Mercator middleware tools from TSI International Software Ltd. can transform and map data in real time for mission-critical applications. The Wilton, Conn., company's Mercator tools support one-step transformations of electronic data interchange X12 transaction sets and EDIFACT messages. New functions in Mercator 1.4 include a system editor for managing transaction workflow and a launch engine for event-driven data transformations.
Tool offloads Cobol date code work to workstations
The TouchPoint feature lets users create code fragments for testing. Micro Focus Inc. has developed a Cobol maintenance suite for workstations that is aimed at agencies overwhelmed by mainframe maintenance backlogs. Some early users of the Mainframe Express suite have boosted their code modification and testing productivity as much as 50 percent, said officials of the Mountain View, Calif., company.
Be businesslike about archiving electronic records, NARA says
NARA is not going to tell agencies in detail what to do, Miller said. The National Archives and Records Administration is recommending that agencies use an electronic record-keeping system only if it makes business sense. NARA last week published in the Federal Register its latest proposal on archiving electronic records. The proposal is a revision of the initial recommendations that NARA issued last month [GCN, June 29, Page 67].
INTERVIEW John Mercer, government reformer
Last year Mercer left government to become deputy director for government performance planning at Federal Data Corp. of Bethesda, Md. As a consultant, Mercer advises agencies how to implement the GPRA legislation. His clients include the Veterans Affairs Department, Office of Personnel Management, FBI and agencies of the Defense and Interior departments.
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