Lockheed Martin files a protest for Northrop Grumman's CANES award

News Report

Here in this blog we have recently reported that Northrop Grumman was awarded a $37 Million delivery order for the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) common computing environment.

The CANES program aims at consolidating and replacing numerous legacy systems and deliver an open, common network to every ship, submarine and shore-based command and control center in the U.S. Navy. The contract awarded by Northrop Grumman includes options, which, if exercised at the maximum quantities, would bring the cumulative value of the contract to an estimated $638 Million. The issuance of this delivery order to Northrop Grumman is the result of the CANES competitive down-select to a single contractor, which has witnessed a head-to-head competition with Lockheed Martin.

As reported by Bloomberg, Lockheed Martin has filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) claiming potential flaws in the evaluation process which could have precluded consideration of the best solution for the U.S. Navy. The protest will be reviewed by GAO, who has now one hundred days to come to a decision. Normally the protested contract is placed on hold while the GAO conducts its review. If Lockheed disagrees with the result then they may appeal to the Federal courts.

Comments

“Northrop Grumman is confident that its CANES proposal provides the Navy a best-value CANES solution and we stand ready to quickly help the Navy get this critical system to the warfighters,” said Randy Belote, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman. “We are disappointed that a protest was filed and have no further comment at this time.”

References: Bloomberg (1), C4I Technology News (2), Defense Procurement News (3)

Contract Award: Northrop Grumman receives the first delivery order for U.S. Navy CANES

News Report

As announced by U.S. DoD, Northrop Grumman, through its Space and Mission Systems Corp., Reston, Va., has been awarded a $36,646,047 delivery order under a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-incentive-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price contract (N00039-10-D-0028) for the procurement of the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) common computing environment to include guided missile destroyer (DDG) variant first article; DDG variant production units; and multipurpose amphibious assault ship variant first article.

This contract includes options, which, if exercised at the maximum quantities, would bring the cumulative value of the contract to an estimated $637,773,236. Work will be performed in San Diego, Calif., and is expected to be completed by September 2012.  If all contract options are exercised, work could continue until September 2013.

The issuance of this delivery order to Northrop Grumman is the result of the CANES competitive down-select to a single contractor for continued performance under the contract options for development, production and logistics support for CANES.

The Program

For years, the U.S. Navy has been living with a costly maintenance, logistics and support problem. The trouble is that each of the C4I systems aboard its ships requires a separate network infrastructure with a unique set of wires and experts to keep the system running. Now, the U.S. Navy plans to replace those "afloat networks" with a single, common network system. The goal of Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) is thus to consolidate and replace numerous legacy systems and deliver an open, common network to every ship, submarine and shore-based command and control center in the U.S. Navy.

From a programmatic point of view, CANES is the consolidation and enhancement of the requirements for five existing legacy network programs, as well as a single support framework for all C4I applications that currently require dedicated infrastructure to operate delivered and managed legacy systems. These include the Integrated Shipboard Network System (ISNS), Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) Networks, and Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System Maritime (CENTRIXS-M).

CANES will have at its roots primarily the ISNS, but will also incorporate the capabilities of other networks to create a single Consolidated Computing Environment using standard network infrastructure and a common rack architecture. Enterprise services will support hosting of both warfighting and administrative application programs. This evolution requires detailed technical exchanges between the programs’ engineers and a significant amount of resource reprogramming.

The program will take advantage of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and rapid COTS insertion, in order to bring fiscal savings to the U.S. Navy, as well as operational agility to the warfighter. U.S. Navy leaders believein fact that they have been leaving money on the table by maintaining their old systems without gaining new capabilities. By consolidating the computing infrastructure around a common network, U.S. Navy officials hope to extract best-of-breed technology and capabilities from the commercial sector. The CANES solution should also solve a significant configuration management and supportability problem. Currently, each ship has a different configuration of hardware and applications. Training sailors aboard ship to operate and maintain all of the systems increases the complexity and total ownership costs to the U.S. Navy. By moving to a common configuration for hardware and enterprise services, trained sailors can operate and maintain CANES regardless of ship class.

By separating the hardware from the software, U.S. Navy should be also capable to accept emerging requirements and quickly turn them into software solutions that ride on the common CANES infrastructure. Additionally, the high cost and schedule requirements of installing a system on a ship is simplified by delivering a set of CD/DVDs or providing a software download from a secure website. This methodology also makes it technically viable to reuse software, increase open competition by using a non-proprietary CANES backbone, and support other business strategies that will make C4I systems more affordable, supportable and available to the warfighter.

The Context

Since 2010, CANES has witnessed a head-to-head competition between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Lockheed Martin's team included General Dynamics, ViaSat, Harris and American Systems. Northrop Grumman’s CANES team included IBM, Atlas Technologies, Beatty and Company Computing, Juno Technologies, and Syzygy Technologies. On March 2010, both the two teams were awarded a contract for design and development of the CANES common computing environment. On July 2011, U.S. SPAWAR completed the Critical Design Reviews for both competing systems.

References: U.S. DoD (1), DefenceAerospace.com (2), SPAWAR (3), DefenseNews (4), Journal of Software Technology (5), Defence Industry Daily (6)

U.S. Army is requesting proposals for a new Intelligence Cloud Computing Environment

News Report

Here in this blog we have already covered the increasing focus of Govenrment and Military organizations on the transition of their IT infrastructures towards cloud computing and virtualisation (1,2,3,4). In the Unites States, in particular, data center consolidation and cloud computing appear as the Army's most important priorities — not just for saving money, but for getting information where it needs to be so that soldiers can meet their mission.

Within this context, the U.S. Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command's communications-electronics center, or CERDEC, recently hosted an Industry Day to inform potential technology development partners of new capabilities that support Army cloud computing development efforts and hear what potential partners could contribute to those efforts. As reported by U.S. Army, "the Program Manager Distributed Common Ground System-Army (PM DCGS-A) has identified the need to establish operational clouds at fixed sites and at regional nodes to support Army intelligence data collection and analytics capabilities".

In order to fulfill that need, the CERDEC Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate's Tactical Cloud Integration Laboratory (I2WD) asked industry, academia and other government organizations to submit proposals for capabilities such as multi-intelligence, all-source analysis correlation; platform and resource allocation and optimization algorithms, predictive analysis tools; language translation services; still image and graphic processing capabilities; advanced human intelligence exploitation; and advanced visualization and conceptualization tools.

All proposals were to assist in an effort to establish an infrastructure that supports the storage and management of multi-intelligence data and provides a computational framework that brings analytics to that data.

Not only did potential government contractors have the opportunity to present possible solutions to the U.S. Army's cloud computing gaps, but the event gave government personnel the chance to tell industry where the U.S. Army's focus is related to current and future forces, said Mark Kitz, technical director of PM DCGS-A.  Developing cloud technology is important to the intelligence community as a component of DCGS-A, which is the Army's core intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance enterprise system, said Kitz. "It uses the latest in cloud technology to rapidly gather, collaborate and share intelligence data from multiple sources to deliver a common operating picture. DCGS-A is able to rapidly adapt to changing operational environments by leveraging an iterative development model and open architecture allowing for collaboration with multiple government, industry and academic partners," said Kitz.

The ultimate objective is to get technology out to Soldiers by maturing the capabilities and getting it to the DCGS Standard Cloud, said Upesh Patel, CERDEC I2WD TCIL technical director.  "This is a continuous process evolving over time, not a one shot deal. Requirements change and involve user driven- mission input," he stated.   

References: C4I Technology News (1,2,3,4), U.S. Army (5)

Contract Award: GTRI and others to provide IT products for U.S. Federal Agencies

News Report

As announced in a recent press release, Global Technology Resources, INC (GTRI), together with other 37 Competed Prime Contract Holders (including IBM, Dell, and HP) and 21 small businesses, acquired the NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) IV Prime contract to provide IT solutions to the U.S. government under a seven year Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) with a maximum value of $5.6 billion.

The NASA SEWP (Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement) GWAC (Government-Wide Acquisition Contract) provides the latest in Information Technology (IT) products for all U.S. Federal Agencies. SEWP offers low prices (generally below U.S. General Services Administration schedule prices), the lowest surcharge (0.45%) and the easiest and fastest ordering procedure using pre-competed contracts. Through SEWP, U.S. agencies can find an exact fit for their needs at the best overall value by searching the Web and choosing the right solutions offered directly by leading hardware and software manufacturers and experienced Government integrators.

SEWP IV is composed of 48 Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts to 38 prime contract holders, both manufacturers and resellers of IT equipment, based on full and open competition. The SEWP website provides tools for manufacturer searches and for Request for Information/Request for Quotes (RFI/RFQ). These tools are available to assist customers with buying decisions and as one means to provide documentation for any needed selection criteria.

Federal personnel within NASA, all U.S. federal agencies (including the Department of Defense) and their authorized contractors may thus utilize the SEPW IV contract to order networking devices, storage devices, laptops, workstations, printers, monitors, software, audio/visual products, security technologies, system accessories, media, cables, systems integration/installation, training, and maintenance support services.

Comments

“We are pleased to add this contract to our portfolio of federal services, and we look forward to supporting our federal clients and the government community over the life on the contract. We are especially proud to acquire the dedicated personnel who have consistently supported this contract,” said Barb Beckner, Director of Capture Management at GTRI.

References: GTRI (1), NASA SEWP (2)

Planned Acquisition: U.S. Social Security Administration to acquire Private Storage Clouds

News Report

The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) recently published a Request for Information to identify responsible vendors that are capable of providing an enterprise disk storage device infrastructure and related support services for the entire Agency’s data storage needs.

SSA offices in various geographical locations within the United States will need Petabytes (PB) of data storage for mainframe, open system enterprise, and virtual tape equipment. Today, SSA uses controller-based data replication to move collections of data (generally entire systems) between the primary data center and the secondary data center. This is done for disaster recovery purposes, not high availability purposes. SSA data centers are 300 miles apart so the data replication is asynchronous with the secondary data lagging the primary site by about 60 seconds. Performance could be improved by exploting a Private Storage Cloud, having the capability to expand the environment (scalable), to house multi-tenants, and to isolate data from management and performance perspectives, as well as the ability to report on storage usage by application.

In addition, SSA is looking to External Heterogeneous Disk Storage Virtualization techniques for pooling physical storage from multiple storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. This should guarantee the ability to move data between multiple arrays without server/application down time, the ability to replicate data between data centers, the creation of active-active server clusters between data centers at least 400 miles apart, as well as the ability to have the storage accessible from servers running open systems and mainframe operating systems.

Responses from interested vendors will be received by January 25th.

The Technology

Private clouds indicate proprietary computing architectures that provide hosted services to a limited number of people behind a firewall. Advances in virtualization and distributed computing have allowed corporate network and datacenter administrators to effectively become service providers that meet the needs of their "customers" within the corporation.

A wide range of private cloud storage products have been introduced by IT vendors. The storage nodes in a private cloud are linked together with a layer of smart software, which performs several functions. First, it maintains a global name space that allows all the storage in the cluster to be accessed as a single entity, so that administrators can add storage capacity on the back end without having to tell applications at the front end how to reach it. The software also handles drive failures and keeps data available to applications and end users.

A private cloud storage infrastructure should also be able to scale from hundreds of terabytes to multiple petabytes. That level of scalability is achieved not with a forklift upgrade, but simply by adding more servers as they're needed. This architecture provides two major benefits. First, storage administrators can configure and provision new storage nodes quickly and inexpensively. Second, administrators can add capacity only as demand requires, instead of purchasing additional disk space to meet anticipated future growth and then having that capacity sit idle in the present.

Reference: FBO.gov (1), SearchCloudComputing (2), InformationWeek (3)

Contract Award: the first U.S. Army's Cloud Computing Contract

News Report

As announced in a recent press release, a group of contractors including Lockeed Martin, IBM, HP, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, MicroTech, and Criterion Systems, were awarded a $249,800,000 contract for providing enterprise cloud computing services in support of the U.S. Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems.

Under the deal, the above mentioned companies will compete for task orders to provide a host of services. These include software-as-a-service (SAAS), platform-as-a-service (PAAS), infrastructure-as-a-service (IAAS) and data and application migration services. The contract will allow U.S. Army to reduce costs through server consolidation and updating and optimizing IT with fixed and containerized data centers. Specifically, U.S. Army will use the contract to acquire cloud-computing services to consolidate data centers from more than 200 to fewer than 20 by establishing a private cloud. This is the U.S. Army's first cloud computing contract.

The U.S. Army will acquire cloud computing services via the contract in two suites. The first will help the military cut costs by using fixed-facility private-cloud capability. The second will acquire "mobile, containerized data centers" to meet capacity needs on demand when the U.S. Army urgently or temporarily needs it.
Work location will be determined with each task order, with an estimated completion date of December 29, 2016. The bid was solicited through the Internet, with 11 bids received.

The Technology

The central technology of the U.S. Army’s Private Cloud project, known as APC2, is virtualization. By using virtualization, the U.S. Army will reduce the number of data centers from over 200 to less than 20. Such reductions are readily available using mature virtualization techniques. Servers that originally were set up in support of individual applications would be pooled for large gains in capacity utilization.

In the same framework, the awarded companies will support U.S. Army IT transformation by providing a family of SW applications through the SAAS model (software-as-a-service). For decades, companies and military organizations have run software on their own internal infrastructures or computer networks. In recent years, traditional software license purchases have begun to seem antiquated, as many vendors and customers have migrated to the SAAS business model. SAAS is a software application delivery model by which an enterprise vendor develops a web-based software application, and then hosts and operates that application over the Internet for use by its customers. Under this approach, U.S. Army doesn't need to buy software licenses or additional infrastructure equipment.

The Context

Data center consolidation and cloud computing are among the U.S. Army's most important priorities — not just for saving money, but for getting information where it needs to be so that soldiers can meet their mission. On June 2010, the U.S. Army issued a request for proposals for the migration of information technologies into a cloud environment. A statement of work defined this as the “Army’s Private Cloud” (APC2).

APC2 will employ best-of-breed, commercially available services using short-term contracts. Whatever applications will be placed on a private cloud will have to be moved into a Defense Department enterprise environment under the ultimate control of U.S. Cyber Command.

In addition to the Army Private Cloud, U.S. Army also is working with the Defense Information Systems Agency to migrate its in-house email to a private cloud hosted by the DISA.

References: U.S. DoD (1), FederalNewsRadio (2), PR Newsvire (3), InformationWeek (4,5), AFCEA (6), wikinvest (7)

U.S. Army's Common Operating Environment

News Report

As reported on U.S. Army's web-page, U.S. Land Forces are focused on the development of a Common Operating Environment that will streamline communications between Soldiers in vehicles and higher headquarters, creating seamless interoperability between the computers, sensors and applications they use.

The Technology

Developed in October 2010 by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, the Common Operating Environment, or COE, is a set of computing technologies and standards. They are designed to enable secure and interoperable applications to be rapidly developed and executed across a variety of environments. "Through this Army-wide effort to collapse capabilities and integrate them into vehicles, Soldiers can communicate more seamlessly with upper echelons," said Peter Dugan, a systems engineer with the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, known as PEO C3T.

The Mounted Computing Environment, or Mounted CE, is one of several computing environments that support this goal. The Mounted CE is a standard in which systems are set inside vehicles that have large amounts of processing power, but contain much less bandwidth than a tactical operations center. The application includes three classes of capabilities: the first involves transmitting small messages connected to a host; the second includes integrating more functionality and sharing data at the local level; and the third concerns adapting to the new environment.

Michael Anthony, chief of the Mission Command Division for the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development, and Engineering Center, or CERDEC, Command and Control Directorate, known as C2D, said employing a common set of standards into a Common Operating Environment on the tactical network would enable users to "copy and paste" information across separate tactical applications. "Just like we do when we take a bullet from a Microsoft Word document and paste it into a PowerPoint slide," he said.

In addition to the Mounted CE, the Other computing enviroments that support the goal of the COE are:

• Data Center/Cloud CE: a service-based infrastructure for hosting and accessing enterprise-wide software applications, services and data. Common services and standard applications for use by a large number of users over wide area networks.
• Command Post CE: client and server software and hardware, as well as common services (i.e. network management, collaboration, synchronization, planning, analysis) to implement mission command capabilities.
• Mobile/Handheld CE: which provides operating and run-time system, native and common applications and services, software development kits (SDK), and standards and technologies for hand held/wearable devices.
• Sensor CE: which provides a common interoperability layer, implementing standards and technology for data services, NetOps, and security for specialized, human-controlled or unattended sensors. The Sensor CE does not specify specific hardware and software for the sensors.
• Real-Time/Safety Critical/Embedded CE: which provides the real-time infrastructure that allows the development of telemetry (i.e. avionics and vetronics) as well as the integration of vehicle health sensors. This CE will include an abstraction layer to reduce the burden of integrating C2, Comm and Sensor systems to the real-time platform.
• Generating Force CE (pending): business systems which span all Computing Environments and include Post, Camps and Stations, and the Operating Force. This also includes the U.S. Army’s Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) systems.

The Context

Conventional approach to information technology implementation and management may be cumbersome and inadequate to keep up with the pace of change. The acquisition process focuses on the development and fielding of systems by programs that were established to deliver capability for a specific combat or business function. Based on functional proponent requirements, program managers individually choose and field hardware platforms and software infrastructures. Meanwhile, to support ongoing conflicts, U.S. Army and combatant commanders independently procure commercially available solutions, often installing and customizing them in theater. As a result, deploying and deployed units frequently must plan and execute operations using multiple computer systems with different hardware, operating systems, databases, security configurations and end-user devices.

On the 28 of December 2009, a Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army (VCSA)'s memorandum requested the U.S. Chief Information Office/G-6 to develop both 'as is' and 'end state' network architectures. The requirement for a Common Operating Environment (COE) became central to the directive to CIO/G-6. The intent was to standardize end-user environments and software development kits, establish streamlined enterprise software processes that rely on common pre-certified, reusable software components, and develop deployment strategies that allow the users direct access to new capability.

The "Army Network Architecture Strategy – Tactical version 1.1", dated 6 April 2010, was crafted in response to the VCSA‘s memorandum. Since then, CIO/G-6 has written the Guidance for ‘End State’ Army Enterprise Network Architecture version 2.0 to provide direction for the entire Army Enterprise Network.

On October 2010, the U.S. Army published a guidance for a Common Operating Environment Architecture for the Army Enterprise Network. Both the Chief Information Office/G-6 and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA(ALT)) approved the guidance on Oct. 20, 2010.

The COE Architecture and the U.S. Army’s overarching “End State” Architecture are expected to drastically reduce the time it takes to deliver relevant applications to those who need them. The COE augments Army Software Transformation, an effort to standardize end-user environments and software development kits, establish streamlined enterprise software processes that rely on common pre-certified, reusable software components, and develop deployment strategies that allow users direct access to new capability.

The benefits of a COE Architecture are lower costs, improved inter-operability and easier system maintenance. In order to obtain funding for developing and acquiring IT devices or systems, all programs under the U.S. Army Acquisition Executive will need to comply with the COE guidance and plan. The guidance and plan also provide direction to industry partners.

The guidance is one of several annexes to the overarching document “End-State Army Enterprise Architecture” that guides future network procurements and establishes minimum technical architecture standards for the acquisition or development of IT and National Security Systems.  The “End State” document and some of the annexes will be published in the near future. To help guide the COE effort, the Army CIO/G6 developed a maturity model that can be used to conduct cost-benefit trades and to evaluate programs’ alignment with the COE goals.

References: U.S. Army (1,3,4), AFCEA (2)

NATO provides virtualised information services in Afghanistan

News Report

As reported by Digital Battlespace and other news sources, the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) has successfully achieved a fully virtualised information services infrastructure for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

In a statement released on 10 December, NC3A said the ‘significant three-year engineering and programmatic effort’ comprised ‘a major step forward, one that is still to be equalled in the NATO static command structure’. The organisation’s Capability Area Team has ‘evolved’ the ISAF server and storage infrastructure into a ‘modern, resilient and energy efficient capability’, the statement outlined.

The first virtualised solution was deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 under the Centrix-ISAF project, which installed the initial resilient Network Interconnection Points connecting the US Centrix-ISAF capability and NATO, thus creating the single information domain now known as the Afghanistan Mission Network. From there, with the creation of the ISAF Joint Command HQ (IJC) at the Kabul International Airport in 2010 the concept advanced, again with a redundant server room approach.

In March 2011, fully virtualised server rooms were installed at Kandahar Airfield. Since then all server rooms at the Regional Commands, HQ Kabul and IJC have been virtualised, and all Functional Area Services have migrated into this infrastructure, ahead of schedule. This move towards virtualisation is believed to have saved ISAF a total of some $1.2 million, broken down into $65,000 in non-recurring costs, and $234,000 per year in operating costs over a five-year life cycle, according to NC3A.

It allows commanders to quickly recover information from equipment failures without loss of data through this new method, and hardware deployment into theatre becomes less of an issue because NC3A provides it also.

Related Documents

• NATO supporting ISAF (video)

References: Digital Battlespace (1)

Secure Cross Domain Data Transfers with Raytheon's High Speed Guard

News Report

As announced in a recent press release, Rayheon's High Speed Guard cross domain technology (HSG) is now commercially available as an off-the-shelf product. High Speed Guard, previously offered as a service, has been on the U.S. Department of Defense's Unified Cross Domain Management Office baseline list of approved solutions since May of 2010.

The new HSG 3.0.3 release lowers data center maintenance cost and improves monitoring by enabling consolidated network management. Previously, customers would pay for each additional feature that was added to the product. Now, through commercialization of HSG, customers can benefit from product enhancements at no charge as part of a standard maintenance agreement. Another advantage of commercialization is that HSG will no longer be sold as an appliance. This allows customers' freedom of choice in selecting a hardware platform on which to run HSG

The Technology

The sharing and movement of data from a wide variety of sources is essential to the rapid, accurate, and precise execution of almost all applications. Modern military, intelligence, and law enforcement operations, in particular, critically depend on a timely sharing of information. Data collected at higher security levels is typically processed into intelligence meant to be shared at lower security levels, including releasable data for coalition partners. Command and control systems in the field require automated access to higher security level tasking and reporting systems.

Unfortunately, the persistent threat of cyber attack, penetration, and data loss requires that only the most secure methods are utilized to allow information sharing and transfer.

Cross domain solutions provide the ability to manually or automatically access or transfer between two or more differing security domains and thus enable transfer of information among incompatible security domains or levels of classification. Current security policies require a trusted entity to independently validate data being moved between top secret, secret, releasable and unclassified networks. These products are commonly known as trusted guards, high assurance guards, or just guards. Guards typically function as proxies, providing network separation between the two systems being connected.

High Speed Guard™ (HSG) is an accredited software solution that enables highly complex, bi-directional, automated data transfers between multiple domains. HSG has demonstrated the fastest bi-directional transfer rates of more than 9 gigabits per second (Gb/s) on dual processor commodity servers, running a hardened Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® operating system with a strict Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) policy.

HSG supports a wide variety of data transfer scenarios through the use of flexible transfer mechanisms and extensive data support. These include web services, flow real-time Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG2 and MPEG4) video, transfer imagery of multiple formats, imagery metadata files, eXtensible Markup Language (XML), inter-system messaging, Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) data, and a wide variety of proprietary data formats.

Multiple accredited transfer mechanisms provide a variety of fixed security protections and secure transfer methods. These mechanisms include:

• Streaming Video. High-Speed Guard enables real-time video streaming while providing unparalleled control and auditing of video streams through its MPEG2 parsing capability. This validates key metadata fields, including classification and release caveats. The High-Speed Guard provides the same validation capability for video clip files.
• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Web Services. High-Speed Guard includes built-in support forWeb services utilizing HTTP. In addition to providing complete inspection of all HTTP headers, the XML parsing capabilities provide full validation support for SOAP based services. Complete support is also provided for SOAP attachments, enabling product retrieval services with multi-gigabyte payloads, while enforcing complete data inspection routines.
• High Performance Transfer. High-Speed Guard delivers data transactions through simultaneous, bi-directional information transfers using separate transmission sockets. This allows it to sustain rates of more than 9Gb/s on two CPU commodity commercial off-the-shelf servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with a Strict SELinux policy.
• Automated Secure Transfer (AST). High-Speed Guard supports file “drop box” transfers utilizing Secure Shell’s Secure Copy or FTP. AST validates files using the same rule engine as other High-Speed Guard services, a COTS virus scanner, digital signatures, or any combination thereof. Interaction with remote systems is highly customizable, including the mechanism used to indicate files are ready for transfer. Failed files can automatically be re-directed to a HRM. AST supports a “one-to-many” capability for copying files to multiple destinations in a single transaction.

High Speed Guard is deployed with an audit configuration that meets standard requirements across the cross domain community. Each deployment is enhanced with auditing specific to the data flows and security policies for that deployment. This unique auditing is driven by the Rule Engine, permitting the security policy to send any data deemed appropriate to the audit trail at any time. HSG supports local and remote log consolidation of the standard operating system syslog, binary auditing, and data transfer logging. All log and audit data is actively collected, parsed and reduced for immediate administrator notification of security eventsƒ.

High Speed Guard is engineered to satisfy cross domain security requirements for Top Secret/SCI and Below Interoperability (TSABI) and Secret and Below Interoperability (SABI) C&A processes. Multiple customers, including NGA, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Missile Defense Agency (MDA), and several classified customers have deployed HSG and received accreditation under Director of Central Intelligence Directive (DCID) 6/3, National Institute of 800-53 and 8500.2 security controls.

The Context

High-Speed Guard received its first certification and accreditation in 1998. Since then, it has been fielded to the National Geospatial - Intelligence Agency, Air Force and several other agencies that require critical infrastructures that guard U.S. classified information.

In 2002, High-Speed Guard became certified against Director of Central Intelligence Directive 6/3, Protection Level 4 - Integrity and Availability High, and Appendix E requirements.

In 2010, High-Speed Guard was added to the Unified Cross Domain Management Office (UCDMO) Baseline. UCDMO is the U.S. DoD office that provides centralized coordination and oversight of all cross domain initiatives across the U.S. DoD and the Intelligence Community.

Comments

"The commercialization of HSG provides significant advantages to customers," stated Ed Hammersla, chief operating officer for Raytheon Trusted Computer Solutions. "Now they can purchase a product license and maintenance contract and will receive all new product enhancements as well as customer support."

References: Raytheon (1,2,3,4), UCDMO (5)

NGEN Update: less than five potential bidders will compete on price

The Context

Here in this blog we already discussed about the draft request for proposal that was issued by US Navy under the Next Generation Enterprise Network program (NGEN), i.e. the follow-on to the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI), the US Department of Navy’s current shore-based network and operating environment. NGEN will supply a secure information technology infrastructure for the continental United States and select locations overseas.

NGEN is aimed at delivering information transport services and provide access to core enterprise applications for the warfighter and those who support them. NGEN provides the foundation for the US Department of Navy’s future Naval Networking Environment, which is envisioned to be a fully integrated enterprise-wide networking environment where data and services are ubiquitously available to Department of Navy users.

The US Navy had already spent more that $430 million on NGEN. The whole program was expected to cost $50 billion through 2025.

News Report

As reported by GovconWire and other news sources, the US Navy will use price as its standard when it awards the Next-Generation Enterprise Network contract, according to Capt. Shawn Hendricks, manager of the Naval Enterprise Networks Program Office. At a industry briefing Friday, Hendricks said the network will likely cost $10 billion over five years, double what the Navy spent on its previous large network contract, the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (originally awarded to EDS, now HP, in 2000).


Hendricks described NGEN as the largest federal IT contract that he is aware of today, designed to provide commercial applications and network connections to more than 400,000 computers and more than 750,000 Navy and Marine end users. The NGEN contractor will provide data centers and base and local area networks, but not long-distance networks, which the Defense Information Systems Agency will provide.

Based on responses from industry to date on draft proposal requests, Hendricks said, there are fewer than five potential bidders that can meet the criteria set out in those drafts.

Unlike NMCI, which is operated by a single contractor — Hewlett-Packard — NGEN management will likely be divided among several different organizations, including the US Navy. After completion, NGEN will give increased network command and control responsibilities to US Navy and Marine users. “The Navy has wanted to take back ownership of the network and has certainly wanted to exercise more direct control of the operation of the network than did in NMCI,” said Pat Tracey, vice president of defense industry development at HP Enterprise Services.

The US Navy’s segmented approach to NGEN, in addition to the project’s massive size and scope, has led to the creation of several contractor teams, including an alliance led by HP, which is bidding on individual NGEN aspects, such as hardware, software, network transport services, enterprise services and security operations. Other project bidders include Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp., General Dynamics, Harris, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

A final request for proposals is due Dec. 21, 2011 with the contract to be awarded in December 2012. The network must be ready for operation April 30, 2014, when the NMCI contract ends (the Navy Marine Corps Intranet)

References: GovconWire (1), NextGov (2), DefenseSystems.com (3)

Contract Award: Brazialian Military Police of Sao Paulo to upgrade its IT infrastructure

News Report

As reported in a recent press release, Midas Medici Group Holdings, Inc., an innovative green IT company in the fields of virtualization, cloud computing and data management, announced that its CIMCORP brand has been awarded a $1.3 million contract from the Military Police of Sao Paulo, Brazil, known locally as the Policia Militar do Estado de Sao Paulo (or "PMESP"). CIMCORP will be upgrading the Military Police's server infrastructure and enhancing its virtualization environment.

The project is a major upgrade for the Military Police and will consist of 8 brand new physical servers, provided by HP, to replace the old server cluster. These servers will be setup and run using virtualization software to provide anywhere from 400 to 500 virtual servers to run the Military Police's entire intranet environment. This intranet environment must perform a wide variety of tasks, including: operational intelligence systems, email, monitoring end-to-end services, 190 call centers (equivalent to 911 in the United States), etc. The old servers will not be discarded, but rather reused for the Military Police's internet environment, which will be run on 50 to 60 virtual servers.

The Context

The Military Police of Sao Paulo is the largest state police force in the country of Brazil, with over 100,000 personnel in its ranks, distributed across several battalions all over the state as well as within the Greater Sao Paulo region (Grande Sao Paulo) which itself comprises 40 cities and towns.

Operating in Brazil since 1988, Midas' CIMCORP brand provides and manages a complete spectrum of IT infrastructure services and solutions to commercial and government markets. CIMCORP specializes in data center services with an emphasis on complex solutions that enable Brazilian companies to virtualize and implement cloud-based systems.

Comments

"This is another major project for Midas and our CIMCORP brand in Brazil," stated Nana Baffour, CEO and Co-Founder of Midas Medici. "Due to the sensitive nature of fighting crime, the Military Police will need a state-of-the-art system with sophisticated security architecture and data storage requirements, combined to protect mission-critical data and police records. We remain committed to providing the Military Police with CIMCORP's industry recognized quality of service, and look forward to announcing additional projects with other government agencies and large businesses throughout the remainder of 2011 as our organic sales continue to increase."

"Improving our virtualized environment while adding additional security and backup capabilities are our primary objectives and that is why CIMCORP, with its highly regarded reputation in these fields, was chosen through our selection process. Although this represents our first engagement with CIMCORP, we are pleased with how smoothly our interactions have been so far and look forward to working with them on a more consistent basis as our IT upgrade project gets underway," said Marcos Botaro Xavier, Data Center Manager at PMESP in Brazil.

References: Midas Medici (1)

Contract Award: American Systems to take US DSCA through the clouds

News Report

As reported in a recent press release, AMERICAN SYSTEMS announced the award of the Cloud Computing and IT Support Services contract by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA). The award was made under the ENCORE II Multiple Award Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, which provides the US Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal agencies with a full range of IT solutions.

The task order is valued at $18.3 million with a one-year base period and four one-year options.

AMERICAN SYSTEMS will provide security engineering certification and accreditation (C&A), managed hosting services, operations support to Security Cooperation Enterprise Solution (SCES), and managed IT Services.

Under the terms of the contract, AMERICAN SYSTEMS will provide 24/7/365 fully managed IT infrastructure hosting using cloud technology for SCES program support, non-production, disaster recovery, and production environments, as well as additional items of supply as they are reported in the above mentioned press release.

The Technology

Cloud computing, which refers to an emerging computing model where machines in large data centers can be used to deliver services in a scalable manner, has become popular for corporations in need of inexpensive, large scale computing. With cloud computing the key enterprise services are delivered over the Internet, on demand, from a remote location, rather than residing on the organization’s servers.

Recently, the United States government has begun to utilize cloud computing architectures, platforms, and applications to deliver services and meet the needs of their constituents.

The Context

More than a decade ago, US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) and the security community began efforts to upgrade US legacy case development, implementation and execution business systems. The goal was to replace the outdated systems used by Army, Navy, and Air Force security cooperation organizations. It was a significant effort that turned out to be more difficult than anyone anticipated.

In July 2008, the DSCA and the US Business Transformation Agency (BTA) partnered with each other to define, design, develop, field and implement a Security Cooperation Enterprise Solution (SCES).

The mission of SCES is to improve access and visibility of case execution data across acquisition, logistics, and financial functional areas to better manage security cooperation programs. SCES will achieve this mission by standardizing business processes, rules, and data, applying technologies that are flexible to support a changing business environment, and accessing the case execution data currently residing in the domestic systems (e.g., acquisition data) and leveraging the US DoD emerging Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

SCES focuses on Case Execution, Case Implementation until Case Reconciliation and Closure, specifically the logistics, acquisition and financial business processes and data that support Foreign Military Sales (FMS). SCES will encompass an end-to-end view of the security cooperation processes, data requirements, reporting requirements, and systems that currently support or will support the business of FMS.  The resulting enterprise solution will focus on addressing the deficiencies and improving Case Execution by establishing the business standards and data necessary to support the end-to-end security cooperation process.

Comments

“We are thrilled to be selected based on our extensive experience across a broad range of IT services that provide the federal government with IT security, flexibility and availability,” said William C. Hoover, president and CEO of AMERICAN SYSTEMS. “AMERICAN SYSTEMS’ support will significantly contribute to the federal government’s efforts to move to the cloud for cost savings, flexibility, and secure performance.”

Additional Information

• Moving to the Cloud: An Introduction to Cloud Computing in Government (pdf)

References: American Systems (1), FBO.gov (2), DSCA's Director Blog (3)

Contract Award: TWD to provide enterprise IT services and support for US Naval Sea Systems Command

News Report

As announced in a recent press release, TWD has been awarded a $121 million SeaPort-e Task Order by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). Working directly with the Command Information Office (CIO), TWD will provide enterprise IT services and support.

Provided Services

Under the Seaport Enhanced contract, TWD provides professional engineering, technical and programmatic support services for the US Naval Sea Systems Command's Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUSC), headquarters, and its field activities.

Services available under this contract span the entire spectrum of product areas supported by the Warfare Centers and may cover a range of technical skills including: research, technology development, concept exploration, design and demonstration, prototyping and fabrication, test and evaluation, certification, deployment, life cycle sustainment, operation and maintenance, improvement, modernization, overhaul, demilitarization and disposal.

Under the terms of the agreement, TWD and its team will support NAVSEA in critical areas including, but not limited to:

• Microsoft® SharePoint® Development and Administration
• Network Architecture and Design
• Systems Management and Virtualization
• IP and PBX Telecommunications Services
• Video Teleconferencing Support
• NAVSEA Headquarters Information Assurance Support
• Certification and Accreditation Lifecycle Support
• Applications Lifecycle Management
• IT Solutions Engineering
• Data Warehousing and Archiving Support
• NMCI/CoSC/NGEN Support

The Context

The US Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is the largest of the Navy's five system commands. With a fiscal year 2008 budget of $24.8 billion, NAVSEA accounts for nearly one quarter of the Navy's entire budget.

NAVSEA is comprised of command staff, headquarters directorates, affiliated Program Executive Offices (PEOs) and numerous field activities. With a force of 53,000 civilian, military and contract support personnel, NAVSEA engineers, builds, buys and maintains the US Navy's ships and submarines and their combat systems.

The origin of NAVSEA dates to 1794, when Commodore John Barry was charged to oversee the construction of a 44-gun frigate and ensure that all business "harmonized and conformed" to the public's interest. Today, the NAVSEA organization has 33 activities in 16 states. NAVSEA strives to be an efficient provider of defense resources for the nation, and it plays an important role in the US Navy Enterprise. As a Provider Command, it has the responsibility of directing resource sponsors into the proper mix of manpower and resources to properly equip the fleet.

NAVSEA has the further responsibility of establishing and enforcing technical authority in combat system design and operation. These technical standards use the organization's technical expertise to ensure systems are engineered effectively, and that they operate safely and reliably.

Comments

“This win is the largest unrestricted task order in TWD’s history and represents a big step forward in the company’s development,” said Larry Besterman, CEO and President, TWD. “We are pleased to continue our long-standing relationship with the Department of Defense.”

“We are honored to have the opportunity to support NAVSEA,” added Besterman. “We look forward to delivering technology value that streamlines processes to ensure NAVSEA’s mission is achieved efficiently and cost-effectively. Our goal is to swiftly identify NAVSEA’s challenges and deliver integrated solutions, all while maintaining existing operations that create high value for the customer”
References: TWD (1,2), NAVSEA (3)

US Navy unveils new "green" data center

References: Navy.mil (1)

News Report

US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) unveiled a new data center that will play a key role in consolidating more than 100 Navy data centers to increase effectiveness and efficiency and to reduce costs while still meeting the Navy's security and operational requirements.

The Centre

The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic (SSC Atlantic) in Charleston is one of the five field activities of US Navy's SPAWAR, and its systems centers provide much of the tactical and non-tactical information management technology required by the Navy to complete its operational missions.

Construction of the new data SSC Atlantic's centre began on Oct. 15, 2010 and was recently completed. The $9.498 million data center was designed to the United States Green Building Council's Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design silver rating standard.

The Navy's data center consolidation initiative will provide cost-savings due to reductions in physical locations, power and data center management contracts.
The Context

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus laid out five aggressive energy goals in October 2009 to improve energy security and efficiency, increase energy independence, and help lead the nation toward a clean energy economy. This initiative assists in achieving the energy goal of increasing alternative energy afloat and ashore where by 2020, the Department of the Navy (DON) will produce at least 50 percent of shore-based energy requirements from alternative sources and 50 percent of DON installations will be net-zero.

Comments

"This data center will be part of the Navy's data center consolidation effort. Not only is this data center efficient, it's green. That is another big piece of what we want to do. We need to protect the environment and the resources that we have. This data center will help us do that," said Navy's Chief Information Officer Halvorsen, who is the Navy's senior official on matters related to information management, information technology/cyberspace and information resources management. He is also the Department of the Navy's lead for IT/cyberspace efficiency.

"We are here today to support the Sailors and Marines underway and in harm's way. The demand for IT efficiencies and demand for efficiencies at large across our Navy are increasing. Through facilities like this and efforts like this, we are able to not only increase our IT efficiencies and reduce our spending in IT, but also build up a core of quality professionals, diverse IT professionals, that can man, manage, and engineer such a facility and maintain it," said Weddel, assistant deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance.

Planned Acquisition: US Navy issues draft RFP for its Next Generation Enterprise Network

References: FBO.gov (1), DON CIO (2), HP (3), Washington Business Journal (4)

News Report

The US Navy has recently issued a draft request for proposal in support of the delivery of Transport Services (TXS) and Enterprise Services (ES) under the Next Generation Enterprise Network program (NGEN). This drat issue is expected to be the final major document release in advance of the final RFP that is planned for December 2011.

The draft request asks for information on end-user communication and collaboration services and thin client and cloud computing.

The Navy had already spent more that $430 million on NGEN. The whole program is expected to cost $50 billion through 2025.
The Program

The Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) is the follow-on to the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI), the US Department of Navy’s current shore-based network and operating environment. NGEN will supply a secure information technology infrastructure for the continental United States and select locations overseas.

NGEN is aimed at delivering information transport services and provide access to core enterprise applications for the warfighter and those who support them. NGEN provides the foundation for the US Department of Navy’s future Naval Networking Environment, which is envisioned to be a fully integrated enterprise-wide networking environment where data and services are ubiquitously available to Department of Navy users.

The Context

Enterprice services for the US Department of Navy are currently provided within the framework of the NMCI contract. NMCI consists of more than 660,000 user accounts at more than 300 bases in the continental United States, Hawaii and Japan, making it the largest intranet in the world. NMCI plays a vital role in information sharing, transmitting 3.4 terabytes of data each day and over 100 million email messages per month. NMCI has significantly increased network security; each month NMCI thwarts 1,200 unclassified intrusion attempts, blocks 9 million spam messages, and detects an average of 60 viruses.

Prior to NMCI, the Department of the Navy’s IT infrastructure consisted of stove-piped systems, independently procured and operated by individual commands throughout the world. Organizing and administering these individual systems inhibited connectivity, increased costs, and rendered all information sharing and security practically impossible. Lack of centralized IT management and planning also resulted in significant disparity in technology capabilities among commands in both the Navy and Marine Corps.

The first NMCI contract was awarded to Electronic Data Systems , now HP. Sub-contractors to HP include Apple, Cisco, Dell, McAfee, Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Verizon, and Symantec.

The highest levels of Department of the Navy leadership, including the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, are actively engaged on ensuring a seamless transition from the NMCI environment to the NGEN environment. To accomplish this, the Department is leveraging lessons learned from NMCI and other government and industry organizations that operate large enterprise-wide networks.

Contract Award: Boeing to provide Twister Data Framework technology to US Securities and Exchange Commission

References: Boeing (1,2), SMSi (3)

News Report

As announced in a recent press release, Boeing's subsidiary Solutions Made Simple Inc. (SMSi) recently received a data integration contract from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Under the terms of the agreement, SMSi will provide software licenses and support for its Twister Data Framework technology to the SEC as part of the agency's effort to better access and manage data stored across its enterprise.

The Technology

SMSi's Twister product is designed to extract, share and query information stored in an unlimited number of data sources and applications.

Twister enables organizations implementing business intelligence and analysis strategies to extract, transform, and load data from across the enterprise to create consistent, accurate information. By linking legacy data and applications, Web-based technologies, and third-party applications into an efficient pipeline that coordinates the data retrieval, enrichment, and delivery processes, Twister allows analytics users to exploit information enterprise-wide. By using Twister, organizations can quickly process digital information and automatically connect an unlimited number of disparate data sources and applications without the need for manual processing or metadata.

Unlike traditional “single threaded” Extract Translate and Load (ETL) tools, Twister operates in a completely parallel environment. The Twister framework can be distributed across hundreds of systems, allowing users to take full advantage of COTS hardware. As data arrives into the Twister environment, it is seamlessly spread across the appropriate data cluster. Once the data has been processed it can be reassembled and delivered to a variety of applications in any format.

The Context

Boeing acquired SMSi in August 2011, which now operates within the Information Solutions division of Boeing's Network & Space Systems business. SMSi employs approximately 65 people and is based in Reston, Va.

Comments

"We are thrilled that the SEC has chosen Twister to enable better management and intelligence of large volumes of data," said John Hinshaw, vice president and general manager of Boeing Information Solutions. "Twister has proven to be a valuable tool for the U.S. Intelligence Community and Department of Defense customers. The SEC contract demonstrates Twister's potential to serve the broader federal market’s data integration needs as well."

"Our customers continuously look for better, more cost-effective ways to manage data across disparate networks, and SMSi has terrific capability to do that," said Hinshaw referring to the SMSi's acquisition, "We've worked with SMSi for a number of years and see their team and products as strong complements to our existing capabilities. SMSi adds important vertical content to Boeing's product portfolio for two high-growth markets that are key priorities for our customers: C4ISR and cybersecurity"

Further Reading:

• Twister Data Integrator (pdf)

Contract Award: SAIC to provide information systems engineering and information technology services to US Army

References: SAIC

News Report

As appeared on a recent news report, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) was awarded a prime contract by the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command (ISEC) to provide information systems engineering and information technology (IT) services in support of the United States Army Information Systems Engineering Command (ISEC) and federal agency communication systems worldwide.

The Context

ISEC carries out important roles in the US Army's information mission area, with major functions including engineering, installing, quality assurance and testing for the diverse communications and automation systems throughout the Army. Under the contract, SAIC will provide information systems engineering and IT services as required, including full life cycle planning, design, development, engineering, implementation, procurement, logistics, evaluation, test, sustainment, and ancillary services for all ISEC projects.

The multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract has a five year period of performance with a total contract ceiling value of $892 million.

Comments

"We look forward to providing innovative and flexible technologies to support ISEC's engineering and technical requirements around the world," said Peter Dube, SAIC senior vice president and business unit general manager.