$7 Billion Intranet Unites Units Around the World
CORONADO , The Navy and Marine Corps celebrated completion of the second hub in their new, worldwide $7 billion computer network here last week.
Military brass along with civilian contractors christened their network operations center with music and speeches while white-hat hackers worked in the background to test the system’s security.
The Navy Marine Corps Intranet project has created more than 1,000 jobs in San Diego “and more will follow,” said Rick Rosenburg, the contracting team’s top executive on the project.
Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) of Plano, Texas, is the lead contractor with Raytheon Co., MCI WorldCom, Dell Computer Corp., Wam!Net and a group of small businesses acting as subcontractors.
One business that has come to San Diego as a result of the project is Fairfax, Va.-based PEC Solutions, Inc.
The company, which specializes in putting government on the Internet, now has 60 employees working out of an office in Mission Valley. PEC, which trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol PECS, has 822 employees altogether. Company executives said they wanted to pursue other government and private sector clients here.
EDS has publicly stated its intranet partnership, called the Information Strike Force, could bring in at least $6.9 billion of revenue over five years. The contract could run longer.
Second Center To Open
San Diego is actually the second network operations center to open in the system, which could eventually serve 460,000 people. The Navy opened the first such center last month in Norfolk, Va.
Still ahead is a congressionally mandated test of the partially completed network. Defense Department officials are debating whether to test the system using commercial guidelines or more stringent military guidelines.
During ceremonies Aug. 6, the Navy and its contractors showed guests around their nerve center at North Island Naval Air Station. Displayed at the site were examples of the computer terminals the partnership would provide its clients. They included portable computers in hardened cases for fieldwork.
Like the Ma Bell of old, the partnership will lease equipment to the Navy and Marine Corps, then provide service over that equipment. The package comes with several quality-of-service promises, as well as promises to refresh the equipment as technology advances.
Civilians working on the network will be subject to standard defense contractor clearances, said Navy Capt. Bill Bry, program manager with the San Diego-based Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (Spawar).
He said the Navy does not have concerns about putting civilians in charge of the information that will flow through the network. “It hasn’t been an issue,” he told a group of reporters.
The Navy Marine Corps Intranet will replace 200 separate wide area networks at 300 bases across the United States and beyond, from Guam to Iceland.
It also promises to standardize the software the Navy and Marines use.
Bry said the Navy has identified 30,000 legacy computer applications on its 200 networks, and is working to decrease that number.
He called the Intranet project “an enormous opportunity to clean house.”
Marine Brig. Gen. Robert M. Shea, meanwhile, called the project a way to free up resources.
The intranet will let the service take 250 Marines out of computer operations and return them to the operating forces, he said. The new network will not just be useful for intelligence and logistics, Shea said. It may have applications in such functions as telemedicine.
Telemedicine lets medical professionals in one place treat patients in another place, using telecommunications technology.
Space-Age Control Room
Some 340 people work in the network operations center at North Island.
Large projection screens at the front of the room, along with a few dozen operators sitting along several tiers of desks, make the room look like NASA mission control on a small scale.
Among other things, employees there will keep an eye on events that can disrupt the national telecommunications infrastructure. These can include extreme weather or accidents, like the July 18 fire in a Baltimore railroad tunnel that played havoc with the Internet.
A Navy Marine Corps Intranet help desk in a separate building on Point Loma has the potential to employ 700 more people.
