Digital Government

DOD unveils flexible messaging architecture

The Pentagon has adopted a new "flexible" architecture for its Defense Message System that strongly embraces commercial software offers users simplicity of use and promises to save millions of dollars on the halfbilliondollar project. The original DMS design and requirements which included a ma

Digital Government

DOD awards high-speed broadcast service pact

HONOLULU U.S. forces operating in the Pacific will have the first opportunity to tap into a military version of the DirecTV satellite service, and top commanders here have ambitious plans for the system, including everything from sending digital maps to troops in the field to beaming military ins

Digital Government

Intercepts

Spawar ahoy. My Crystal City Va. antenna site has picked up solid signals that Rear Adm. John Gauss will depart the N6 shop in March to replace Rear Adm. George Wagner as commander of Spawar the key Navy command charged with the nutsandbolts work on IT21. This job sounds as exciting as serving a

Digital Government

Agreement targets IT-21 buy-in

HONOLULU Top Navy officials have agreed to focus funding from disparate information technology programs as well as research and development dollars on the Information Technology for the 21st Century (IT21) project, one of the key management tasks necessary for the Navy to accomplish the ambitiou

Digital Government

Cohen plan splits C3 & intelligence

Six months after a major review of Defense Department operations Secretary of Defense William Cohen last week announced a sweeping reform of DOD that will dramatically alter how the department manages information technology as well as bolster major Defense IT initiatives. While the Quadrennial Defe

Digital Government

Intercepts

* No Betamax. That's the analogy that Pete Paulson DISA's DISN operation chief uses to describe the agency's cautious approach to the insertion of ATM technology into DOD's backbone network. Concerned about the lack of standards in the networkgizmo industry Paulson said DISA does not want to acqui

Digital Government

Navy submariner-turned-tech-guru steers course of IT-21

SAN DIEGO Capt. Mark Lenci who manages the Navy's Information Technology for the 21st Century (IT21) project here at the headquarters of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (Spawar) confesses that he had never even sent an email until two years ago. In 1995 Adm. Archie Clemins the comm

Digital Government

Pacific Fleet makes the Web a family affair

The Pacific Fleet's operations span more than half the globe stretching from the coasts of the Americas to those in Asia and on to Africa. Thanks to a crash effort started a year ago the majority of the Navy and Marine Corps units in the Pacific Fleet (PACFLT) are just a mouse click over the horizo

Digital Government

Intercepts

MONTEREY Calif. * Do it now. That's the bottom line of the message that CINCPACFLT Adm. Archie Clemins delivered at the end of his speech to Milcom '97 here. Observing that 'all the technologies to do [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Vision 2010 are here today " Clemins asked 'Why are we going to wait 12 y

Digital Government

DOD slows high-speed telecom development

MONTEREY Calif. The Defense Information Systems Agency announced last week that it has adopted a slower approach to its development of advanced highspeed switching technology on communication networks that will serve all Defense Department users. DISA director Lt. Gen. David Kelley speaking here

Digital Government

NSA cancels telecom award to Cisco Systems

The National Security Agency has canceled the award of a controversial contract to buy thousands of highspeed network switches from Cisco Systems Inc. The agency which rarely comments on any topic publicly did not announce the cancellation of the socalled Light Core contract designed to supply NS

Digital Government

Navy develops fast-track blueprint for IT-21 rollout

MONTEREY Calif. The Navy has adopted a fastpaced plan to turn its ambitious Information Technology for the 21st Century (IT21) vision into reality with rapid insertion of an advanced network architecture into both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets according to Adm. Archie Clemins commander in chi

Digital Government

Frontier software enables Win95 use on tactical nets

Frontier Technologies Corp. has developed software that will enable Army PC users to easily use Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 95 products on its tactical networks. The Army has a multibilliondollar investment in tactical communications gear to support deployed units but until recently Army users could

Digital Government

Congress reins in Defense job cuts

Congress pared down a proposal by the House to slash the Defense Department acquisition work force by 100 000 during the next three years to just 25 000 this fiscal year in the final version of the Defense authorization bill approved by the House and Senate last month. This summer the House version

Digital Government

Intercepts

* Admirals adrift. When Spawar formally took over San Diego NRAD/NCCOSC last month Adm. George Wagner wanted the new organization's name applied to everything including the former .nosc.navy.mil domain name. Corporate identity is important but the newly renamed .spawar.navy.mil domain left a lot

Digital Government

Losing bidders cry foul over NSA switch pact

A National Security Agency networking contract awarded to Cisco Systems Inc. last month has come under sharp attack by the losing bidders with Fore Systems Inc. filing suit with the U.S. Court of Claims and Cabletron Systems Inc. accusing Cisco of engaging in 'predatory pricing" with its winning b

Digital Government

USDA offers a real turkey of a Web site

Looking for some good gobbler gab to accompany Thanksgiving gobbler gobbling? Then dig in to the Agriculture Department's World Wide Web site (www.usda.gov) which serves up a mindboggling array of statistics on turkeys including tips on thawing cooking and storage. The USDA home page which is grap

Digital Government

DOD lays groundwork for network-centric warfare

The Defense Department did not plan the current hodgepodge of networks that has grown up with the decadelong evolution of client/server computing. But DOD now has embraced at the highest levels the concept of 'networkcentric warfare ' in which tactical intelligence and logistics information becom

Digital Government

SMC chief oversees upgrades

LONG BRANCH N.J. If there is anyone in the Army who deserves the moniker 'Mr. Infrastructure ' it would be Col. Dean Ertwine commander of the new Systems Management Center (SMC) here. The service has consolidated all its information infrastructure programs under Ertwine who also is slotted to rec

Digital Government

Intercepts

* Bandwidth luxury tax. That's what Lt. Gen. Douglas Buchholz the J6 plans as a way to relieve the strain on Defense networks that just can't seem to keep up with the demand of highbandwidth applications. Buchholz speaking at last week's AFCEA Washington D.C.chapter lunch said he wants to "deap