On the Horizon: New Navy Network
ON THE HORIZON: NEW NAVY NETWORK
With time ticking away on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet contract due
to expire in 2010, Department of the Navy officials are working hard to formulate
what they see as the next generation enterprisewide intranet network.
By Karen E. Thuermer
With time ticking away on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) contract due to expire in 2010, Department of the Navy officials are working hard to formulate what they see as the next generation enterprisewide intranet network.
By law, the $9.9 billion outsourcing contract the Navy signed in 2000 with EDS for NMCI must end. In 2006, the Navy already exercised its option to extend the NMCI contract through September 2010. The extension added more than $3 billion to the program's overall total contract value.
NMCI is the largest intranet in the world and the single largest government contract in the history of EDS.
But with new advanced technologies such as wireless Internet quickly coming on line, the Navy needs a new system that can incorporate these technologies efficiently, securely, and in a cost-effective manner. These advancements were not available nearly a decade ago when the framework of NMCI was being designed, although today EDS is working on them.
Adding new technologies to an existing system as complex as NMCI, however, can be an unpredictable and risky task. There is too much vulnerability from a security perspective, for example, if new technologies are not added to the network in a very thoughtful manner.
"The Navy and Marine Corps are doing a great job of balancing usage with security," said Kevin Durkin, EDS vice president for NMCI client advocacy and customer satisfaction. "When NMCI was awarded to EDS nearly eight years ago, it was required to do three things: establish a common computing network for the Navy and Marine Corps in the continental United States and Hawaii, improve security for the network, and provide a common platform for all commands. It was the first undertaking of its kind in the world."
While the government has not yet rolled out its specific requirements for the new system, the Navy has been busy examining its own needs to facilitate its transition to what it calls the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN), which will go on line in 2010. The effort is regarded as so important it has received the attention of the Navy's highest officials, including the secretary of the Navy. Navy officials envision that NGEN will be a follow on to NMCI, possibly with the addition of other networks.
Issues of Scale
As Durkin noted, the Navy and Marine Corps need a robust and flexible IT infrastructure to support their broader strategic goals.
"The scale of NMCI is incredible," he said. "But because of the scale, we have learned that there are some products that need help scaling. Some of the product out there is scalable to 50,000 users. We have over 700,000 on ours. When you are scaling that large, you run into issues. So the ability to test and work through issues and work with the manufacturers has been a lesson learned for us as well."
For that reason, developers say, it is vital that the Navy not rebuild its system from scratch, but build on the capabilities of what already exists in NMCI.
"We need to have a vehicle to follow NMCI," said John Lussier, Department of the Navy deputy chief information officer. "NGEN would be the first step in what we are calling the Naval Network Environment [NNE] 2016."
Officials admit that although NMCI is the IT platform on which the Navy can most effectively build NGEN, the changeover, especially from its current vendor to a new vendor or vendors, will be challenging. To ensure a smooth transition between NMCI and NGEN, plans call for several months of overlap.
"From a user's perspective, we don't anticipate a learning curve with the new NGEN system," Lussier said. "Hopefully, it will look and feel the same. As time goes on, a lot of things we are focusing on are things the casual observer may not even notice such as reliability and security-back-office things that I think are the unheralded benefits of NMCI. But we have to make sure that the transition is smooth."
Consequently, the Navy is engaged in ample discussion about the new system and setting aside adequate time for the switch.
"We have to ensure that continued operations are seamless from one contract to the next with the exception that the new one will be better," Lussier said. "Then, as time goes on, NGEN will evolve into a system that is much better."
After all, the basis of NMCI was to leverage the purchasing power of the department, bring together all of its requirements and safely increase performance.
"We want to have an enterprisewide network that will provide an acceptable level of service to everyone on the network, as opposed to each individual command having its own network with some having more money to spend on the network than others," Lussier said.
For that reason, officials believe it makes good sense to minimize the Navy's number of networks and move as many people as possible onto a larger network.
"The goal is to have an enterprisewide system whereby we utilize a standard desktop, standard security configuration and ensure that everybody has availability to the information they need," said Lussier.
At the same time, the network must provide improved reliability, adaptability and security, particularly for the warfighter.
In the meantime, the Navy is continuing to explore requirements for NGEN by interacting with industry via requests for information and hosting interactive industry days, which the Navy expects to continue over the coming six to nine months.
In addition, the Navy is gathering ideas and requirements from all ranks and staff members all the way from sailors and Marines to senior staff members within the Department of the Navy. Much information gathering is being done by interviewing individuals and conducting surveys to capture lessons learned from NMCI.
"We have been operating under NMCI for almost eight years now," Lussier stated. "We have had the opportunity to learn a lot and capture lessons learned. At the same time, we need to talk to those younger folks who have a lot of different ideas and who have grown up with technology. They have ideas as to what they think we should be striving for in this next contract."
The Navy will continue the effort in an open fashion and encourages everyone to participate.
"We are developing our requirements for NGEN without the assistance of any specific industry partner," stated Lussier. "We already have a broader vision of where we want our network to go in the future. We strive to improve security and reliability to ensure timely information gets to the right people, especially the warfighters. Making sure they have timely access to information so they can achieve their mission is at the heart of what we are trying to accomplish."
The Navy is expected to put out a call for requests for proposals (RFPs) for NGEN in first quarter of 2009. While EDS is the single primary contractor with NMCI, the RFP will be a full competition open to all vendors.
"We need to make sure we are in a position to have fair and open competition for NGEN," Lussier insisted.
Secure Environment
While it is still unclear as to the exact performance and functionality improvements the Navy will require for NGEN, Lussier revealed that all elements in NMCI would be available in NGEN.
The NMCI program has been controversial at times during its eight-year history, receiving criticism for poor performance and customer satisfaction in the early phases. In addition, the contract proved costly for EDS, hurting that company's financial results. In recent years, however, the program has stabilized, and officials report overall satisfaction.
"I personally think NMCI has been a huge success and that it is unparalleled from a security perspective," Lussier said. He pointed to NMCI's affordability, as well as performance, schedule and security capabilities, as attributing to its success.
In 2005, for example, the network stopped 20 million unauthorized access attempts and trapped, quarantined and disinfected 70,000 viruses.
Prior to NMCI, the Navy had 28 separate commands that budgeted and managed their own IT systems autonomously. The Navy had no accounting of how much money it spent on IT products and services.
"NMCI was the first undertaking of its kind in the world," stated Durkin. "NMCI is the world's largest purpose-built IT network and represents a significant step forward for the Navy. It was a huge forward-looking decision and represents the first of its kind approach to information services standardization."
NMCI consolidated roughly 6,000 networks into a single integrated and secure IT environment. EDS updated more than 100,000 desktop and laptop PCs in 2007, and will update another 100,000 next year.
Today, NMCI is a self-contained computer system that provides a common computing and network backbone for the secure and reliable delivery of information worldwide. It serves more than 660,000 sailors, Marines and civilians in 620 locations in the United States, Puerto Rico and Japan. It comprises four Network Operations Centers in San Diego, Calif., Quantico and Norfolk, Va., and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; enterprise help desks in Norfolk, San Diego, Hawaii, and Boise, Idaho; and 16 classified server farms (of 19 planned).
In addition, the system has 31 unclassified server farms; 3,000 enterprisewide servers; approximately 345,000 seats (each seat has the capability to support multiple users through multiple accounts); more than 15,000 Blackberries with round-the-clock support; and approximately 2,000 wireless PC cards.
Encryption Protection
Being a secure network, there are also things individual sailors and soldiers cannot do, such as access viral videos or social networking sites. "That is by design, not by lack of capability," Durkin remarked.
Helping to protect the system is NMCI's two-part encryption process, which requires the user to insert an identification card into the PC and then log in using a PIN number or password.
"That causes the security posture to be ramped up so it is difficult to hack in if you are not an authorized user," Durkin stated.
Because of its enterprise capability, the Navy was able to implement this system in approximately three months. While at times the security measures cause some user distress, developers say it enhances the Department of Defense's security posture.
"The program continues to make great strides providing users what they want and how they want to do their work," Durkin added. For example, EDS has new generation laptops and Blackberries on the contract.
"We have new technologies and continue to push the envelope," he said. "We have had to figure out how to use those technologies inside the technologies and enable the sailors and Marines to use those technologies to accomplish their missions. NGEN will continue to build upon that. It is not a global search and replace. It is how you build upon each level."
Another important element is educating sailors and Marines about why they can and cannot do certain things. "When they understand this, it really drives a different reaction from them regarding the system," Durkin said.
As a result, end user acceptance for NMCI has steadily improved. Today some 84 percent of users indicate satisfaction with the network, compared with 54 percent in 2002.
Officials hope NGEN will have a high user acceptance rate well.
"The buzz around town is that if the Navy continues doing what they are doing, which is utilizing what they have and building upon it, their capability will be enhanced tenfold," Durkin said. "They are doing it in a smart way, in steps. You cannot break up a network or go backwards. You must build upon what you have." ♦
