Navy will Web-enable all applications

April 18 NMCI briefing

The Navy will make all of its applications available through a Web interface by 2004 under a plan the service presented this month.

As a start, Navy users will be able to access at least 50 applications through Web interfaces by November 2001, according to an April 1 message sent by Adm. William Fallon, the vice chief of Naval operations.

Fallon's message also named Vice Adm. Richard Mayo as the service's chief information officer. Mayo is the Navy's director of space, information warfare, command and control.

Last year, Adm. Vern Clark, chief of Naval operations, set a 2003 deadline for the Navy to Web-enable its applications.

The 50 applications to be Web-enabled this year are just a small number compared to the total the Navy uses. One command alone has 6,950 applications, according to Joseph Cipriano, the Navy's program executive officer for information technology.

Cipriano may have been referring to the Naval Air Systems Command, because it's the first command to have an extensive software inventory done in preparation for Electronic Data Systems Corp.'s Navy Marine Corps Intranet procurement. Of those applications, 5,671 are server-based and 1,279 are desktop applications, Cipriano said during a briefing last week.

Task Force Web, led by Monica Shephard, the Atlantic Fleet's director of space, information warfare, command and control, will manage the application initiative, according to Fallon's message. Shephard will work closely with Mayo.

The message doesn't address joint applications that aren't fully Web-enabled, such as the Composite Health Care System II or the Standard Procurement System.

"The most important tasks ahead of us are the culture, institutional and process changes," Fallon wrote in his message.

Fallon started a task force on Dec. 15, 2000, to "develop a vision and strategy to exploit Web technology fully" in the Navy through NMCI. The task force reported to Fallon on Jan. 31, but its findings are not available to the public, according to its Web site (www.tfw.navy.mil).

Web-enabling applications makes it easier for remote users to access applications, and it also makes it less expensive to deploy upgraded versions of software than in a client/server architecture because the Web server is the central data repository.