Navy steadily reducing legacy apps

NEW ORLEANS — The Navy is well on its way to reducing the overwhelming number of legacy applications that have slowed down the rollout of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, according to Navy Rear Adm. Charles Munns, director of NMCI.

Speaking at the National Defense Industrial Association's NMCI conference here, Munns said the Navy is close to reaching its goal of identifying the 2,000 to 3,000 applications that will remain on the NMCI network.

When the Navy first began identifying the applications that were being used among the fleet, officials were shocked to find that the number had ballooned to about 100,000. After eliminating duplicate applications from the list, the number still hovered around 70,000.

Since then, the Navy has been working on developing a list of the 2,000 to 3,000 core applications that will be used by everyone in the Navy and Marine Corps when NMCI is fully fielded.

"Functional area managers have been crucial to this effort," Munns said. "They have taken a good look at their respective functional areas and determined what applications lend themselves to best practices across all program divisions."

To date, the Navy has whittled the list down to about 7,000 applications, and Munns said the list will be reduced even further — to between 3,000 and 4,000 — by month's end.

Capt. Chris Christopher, the NMCI staff director, said the actual elimination of the applications will be a process that takes a few years, but getting the list in place is an important first step.

"You have to have a goal in mind before you can get there," he said. "We'll have the list in place soon of where we want to go, and then we can eliminate the applications that we have not yet taken care of."

Christopher said he didn't know the exact number of applications still running, but did say the number is in the low tens of thousands.

The Marine Corps also is looking to reduce its total legacy applications, but has a much less daunting task, said Marines deputy chief information officer Debbie Filippi. The Marine Corps, traditionally a much more unified and structured organization than the Navy, found 8,000 applications and is trying to eliminate about 7,500.

"The 500 applications are not in operation today," Filippi said. "That's a to-be figure, a goal. The hardest part in eliminating applications is in the planning and rationalization."

Filippi said the Marines are trying to create a sense of urgency to "cleanse ourselves in a way that's applicable, suitable, supportable and pragmatic."

Unlike the Navy, which has been eliminating applications for the year prior to rollout, the Marines are going to reduce the number of applications simultaneous to cutting over to the network.

"Basically, our users will be told that they no longer have access to those 8,000 applications, and instead will work on the 500 that we've defined," she said.