Defense information-sharing program is fully operational
By
Bob Brewin
Commercial software and services are available to a range of military and civilian users.
The Defense Information Systems Agency announced Wednesday that a program to provide military and civilian personnel with commercial, Web-based collaboration, search, directory and messaging tools is fully operational.
Net-Centric Enterprise Services will help eliminate redundancy and duplication, said manager Denise Gentile. The tools also are available to employees at non-Defense agencies and to first responders, according to DISA spokeswoman Laura Williams.
NCES collaboration services include instant messaging, low-bandwidth text chat, audio/video Web conferencing, white-boarding, and desktop and application sharing. DISA uses a network of global servers strategically located near end users to deliver information quickly, and provides an enterprise search engine to find information and data hosted on those servers.
The program also offers online global directory services similar to the white pages, including a People Discovery site that can find any Defense military or civilian employee, and a metadata registry for locating data sources departmentwide.
The project dates back to 2005. DISA awarded IBM the initial $17 million NCES contract in 2006. In 2007, it gave Carahsoft Technology Corp. a second contract worth $22 million, to provide the Jabber Extensible Communications Platform to support instant messaging and multiuser text conferencing, and Adobe Connect to support Web conferencing and voice and video teleconferences.
Since 2007, DISA has spent $300 million on the effort. Though the program is operational, the agency plans to update the software and services and has requested $120.4 million in operations and maintenance funding, and $4.4 million in procurement funding in its fiscal 2011 budget for NCES. The Carahsoft contract has been extended until April 25, 2011.
"We will keep these enterprise services modernized and relevant to support the operational communities and evolving missions," said Rebecca Harris, DISA's vice component acquisition executive.
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