Software gives DISA a view

The Defense Information Systems Agency announced last week that it is using software from Managed Objects to monitor a pair of electronic processes and find ways to streamline them.

DISA is using the company's Formula software in its Computing Services division to monitor its supply chain and to give an end-to-end view of a health care application, said Siki Giunta, the McLean, Va.-based company's president and chief executive officer.

DISA's Computing Services division processes Defense Department personnel, payroll, logistics, accounting and medical records. It uses mainframe, server and other types of information processing that encompass multiple operating systems.

Formula enables DISA to manage key applications by providing an integrated view of all the technology in use across such a varied and distributed environment. Formula determines how technology problems impact specific services, and how those problems impact the overall status of DISA's operations, Giunta said.

"Agencies have acquired a tremendous amount of technology to get rid of paper, and they don't have to replace anything" with Formula, she said. "They can leverage everything they have and end up with end-to-end monitoring."

The contract, which was awarded at the end of last year, is valued at more than a $1 million, she said.

For the health care application, DISA wanted to better manage the online process that alerts DOD personnel when they are due for a checkup. That process is nearly complete and will provide a near real-time online interface, said Greg Hribar, vice president of professional services at Managed Objects.

The work with the supply chain application has just begun. It is focused on following a request — such as for a spare machine part needed in Afghanistan — through DISA's systems to the point where it is passed on to the Defense Logistics Agency to fulfill the actual need, Hribar said. "For DISA, it shows how that application started and stopped and headed to DLA. The DLA is DISA's customer."

DISA users can customize Formula's views to access particular information on devices and their associated alarms and to understand how that information impacts service to an agency or the entire computing infrastructure. Views also can be tailored to show senior management the overall status of an agency or service, Giunta said.

Hribar said both DISA projects are being done in tandem, with the health care side nearly complete and the supply chain scheduled to be finished at the end of this quarter. Also by the end of the quarter, Managed Objects will be announcing a new government customer, Giunta said.