Joint Staff portal work under way

The Joint Staff will be getting an enterprise portal to help increase its efficiency in planning and coordinating operations, assessing defense requirements, and allocating resources.

The Naval Air Systems Command's Training Systems Division recently selected SI International as the prime contractor to develop the Joint Staff's Enterprise Portal, which will serve as a single gateway to mission-critical information, tools and applications.

A meeting between Joint Staff and company officials was held Oct. 3, and the portal is scheduled to be fully operational next summer. The contract, which was awarded Sept. 20, is valued at $659,000, according to an SI International spokesman.

The company is at work designing the portal's architecture, which will be flexible and scalable so that capabilities can be enhanced or removed when necessary, said Ray Oleson, chairman and chief executive officer of the McLean, Va.-based company.

SI International has worked on many government portals, including developing and deploying the Electronic Performance Support System for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Action Officer. Other SI clients include the Defense, Energy and State departments.