Marines continue IT upgrade

The Marine Corps is stepping up a program to replace its aging information technology infrastructure as it awaits the arrival of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet.

Under the initiative, called the Enterprise Sustainment Initiative, the Marines will replace about 60,000 of approximately 68,000 seats even before the service prepares to transition to NMCI, said Debra Filippi, Marine Corps deputy chief information officer.

The plan will enable the Marines to institute measures to cut the number of applications the service uses by nearly 95 percent -- to fewer than 432 out of a current tally of 7,876, Filippi said in a July 16 press briefing.

The Marines are in the process of finalizing a contract award for the PCs. Earlier this year, the service awarded a $17.8 million contract to Dell Computer Corp. for 9,940 notebook computers.

NMCI is a $6.9 billion initiative to create a single network for all of the Navy and Marine Corps' shore-based facilities. Although the Marines represent only about 68,000 seats of the overall 411,000 seats that make up NMCI, the service has always been a priority because of its aging IT infrastructure. Some Marines are still using PCs running Microsoft Corp. Windows 95.

Under NMCI's original schedule, the Marine Corps was supposed to begin NMCI implementation earlier this year. But the rollout has been delayed primarily because of the Navy's enormous number of legacy systems.

The Enterprise Sustainment Initiative was created as a measure to deal with that delay.

Filippi said the service is taking advantage of the opportunity to implement its legacy application reduction initiative so that the Marines will be prepared for NMCI transition when it begins in the second quarter of fiscal 2003.

The Marines have been seen as well prepared to transition to NMCI. Unlike the Navy, which has had to deal with thousands of legacy applications and hundreds of networks, the Marine Corps streamlined its operations several years ago. And the Marines have been working to get ahead on their legacy applications.