NGEN Offices Takes Enterprise View
Written by Harrison Donnelly
MIT 2010 Volume: 14 Issue: 1 (February)
With the Marines already working on Early Transition Activities (ETAs) at Camp Lejeune, N.C., the Department of the Navy is entering a crucial stage as it develops its comprehensive new Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN). DoN officials are expected in the coming months to reveal their plans and expectations from industry for the massive ashore network, and make key decisions concerning acquisition strategy, policies and the transition from the existing Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI).
A decade-long service based delivery contract under which DoN transferred much of the responsibility for operating its land-based internal networks to a single contractor, NMCI was originally scheduled to end on September 30, 2005. It was extended twice with congressional approval and is now slated to transition on September 30, 2010. A continuity of services contract with the incumbent contractor will bridge the timeframe between the end of the NMCI contract and the competitive award of NGEN Increment I contracts that will lead to full NGEN implementation.
In a recent interview, Rear Admiral John W. Goodwin, assistant chief of naval operations for NGEN and director of the NGEN System Program Office (SPO), laid out his vision for the new network and acknowledged the challenging task ahead. “We are looking to provide the DoN with a secure network that will be enterprisewide, which will lay the groundwork for the Naval Network Environment 2016. The vision is to have a complete ashore, afloat and garrison network that is secure, interoperable and integrated. That’s where we’re going, and there’s a lot of work to do to get there,” Goodwin said.
NGEN will dovetail with development of the Consolidated Afloat Network Enterprise Services (CANES) program, the service’s planned network for ships at sea. The initiatives will be linked under the rubric of the Naval Network Environment (NNE) 2016. (See MIT, Volume 13, Issue 10, November 2009, page 14.)
“The transition is in progress, and we’re mapping the current processes so that the government can assume control of the networks as they exist today for continued seamless operations. We’re also developing a strategy to compete those elements of the network. There is a single vendor now, which provides all the services for the network. In the future, we’re going to compete the elements of the network. I won’t get into the specifics, because they are still being developed, but we’re mapping the strategy for competing those elements,” Goodwin said.
“We’re also engaged in Early Transition Activities, which are risk mitigators as we move from the old to the new environment,” he continued. “For example, we’re looking at the Information Technology Service Management [ITSM] processes, coupled to the IT Infrastructure Library [ITIL] version 3, to conform to industry standards. We are developing and educating our workforce on those processes and looking to make those a part of our processes in the next-generation network.
“It’s a transitional process over several years to go from a single vendor managing all elements of the network, to a competitive environment in which certain elements are competed. That will take some time. As we transition from the old network, there are three phases: the current network, the transition process, which will take several years, and an end state in which the network is government owned and controlled, and we will provide for information assurance and security. All the while, we’ll be dovetailing with the NNE 2016,” Goodwin added.
SPO ROLE
Established in late 2008, the NGEN SPO plays a somewhat unusual role in coordinating a variety of DoN organizations involved in the project, including the Program Executive Office (PEO) Enterprise Information Systems, which is overseeing acquisition, the NGEN Program Management Office and PEO C4I, which is developing CANES.
“The SPO is the synchronizer and coordinator of the activities to transition from the NMCI network to the NGEN network environment,” Goodwin said. “We take the operations, acquisition, and planning, programming and policy divisions and synchronize their activities so that we don’t miss something. The transition from one network to another is not an overnight or turnkey event. It’s like flying a plane across the country, while at the same time changing all of the engines.”
The SPO works closely with the Program Executive Office and NGEN Program Manager, as well as the operational community for the Navy and Marine Corps, to see what they’re doing and how that fits into the future and the operating concepts of the network, Goodwin explained. “We have a cross-functional nature, since we have the acquisition, operations and policy people, who are experts in their fields, but are not necessarily the ones doing the work. We are the coordinators and synchronizers to the people who are doing the work.”
Goodwin outlined the organization’s goals this way: “On October 1, 2010, the business of the DoN must continue, and we must continue to provide warfighters the networks they need to do their work. The motivations are to provide connectivity to the warfighter, and continue to provide for the business of the DoN. We’re chartered by the Secretary, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps to do these things, and it is truly important to the department that we have this organization to make sure we transition to the next network.”
A key task of the SPO is to work closely with industry, Goodwin noted. “We have engaged with industry in this office, and have hosted more than 70 industry engagements from various people who are bringing their ideas to the table. The SPO has taken on that responsibility, and we will pass on those ideas, as well as take repeat visits from industry representatives for further discussion.
“First and foremost, we’re asking industry to give us their best recommendations for technology solutions for the future,” he continued.
“There is the present operating environment, but there is also something beyond that, which we want to look ahead at as far as we can. We need to be aware of the ongoing increase in computing power, and not get buried in the here and now.”
GOVERNMENT C2
One of the major differences between NMCI and NGEN is that the new system will provide for more direct command and control of the network by the government. Although the Navy and Marine Corps exercise oversight of NMCI, operations and security are managed by the contractor.
Indeed, Goodwin cited the need for increased government control, as well as the opportunity to obtain greater value through expanded contract competition among vendors, as two of the chief lessons from NMCI that will shape decisions about NGEN.
“One of the lessons learned was that the government needs better control to be more responsive to threats. It worked in the past, but we can do better in the future. The government command and control of the network on a real time basis is one of the reasons we’re going to do that. We’re also going to maintain continued network security as threats develop in the future,” Goodwin said.
Command and control of the networks will be done by each service, although enterprisewide policies and services will be adopted as appropriate.
Goodwin also emphasized the importance of the ITSM and ITIL processes. A British-developed set of practices and concepts for managing IT services, ITIL standards reportedly played a key role in improving service levels and user satisfaction in NMCI after they were aggressively adopted.
NGEN will also build on the success of NMCI in the security arena, particularly through network consolidation. Over the past three years, DoN has gone from more than 1,300 networks to about 450, and is scheduled before the end of this fiscal year to bring another 130 or so other networks into the current network.
“This network reduction initiative has mitigated a lot of security risks out there,” Goodwin explained. “When you can push patches to all stations on a network, it’s more efficient than sending a ‘gold disk’ to many smaller networks to implement the required patches and security upgrades. Over the past several years, we have combined many networks into the current network, to reduce that security risk.” Another key piece of the security strategy is to bring in an independent third party to “red team” and validate the security of the network.
CANES COORDINATION
NGEN developers are also watching CANES, which is well along in the contract award process. SPAWAR is expected early in 2010 to select two finalists from among industry teams competing for the prime contract for that program.
“As we move forward in maturing both of those programs, we have to ensure that they’re both integrated and interoperable,” Goodwin said. “Our ships at sea need to communicate with commands ashore, and vice versa. More importantly, when a ship pulls up to the pier and plugs into the network, it has to be speaking the same language. “As CANES and NGEN move forward, we have established working groups at senior levels to ensure the interoperability and integration of these two major systems. The vision is to be able to log on anywhere in the world, afloat or ashore, and get to your data.”
Goodwin gave the example of an aircraft squadron, which, when the carrier comes into port, sends its aircraft to a naval air station, where they are plugged into the ashore network. “We want to make that movement as seamless as possible. Right now it’s not, but we’re working to make it so, and that’s where CANES and NGEN interoperability will pay dividends.
“I’m personally dedicated to the enterprise view, where you have transparency, single process ownership and repeatable metrics to mark your efficiency,” he said. “Any opportunity to provide an enterprise view is what the SPO does.” ♦
