Navy briefs enterprise network plan

Navy officials said they plan to have the Next-Generation Enterprise Network in operation by 2014. At a press briefing Wednesday, top Navy network officials said they would run five procurements to replace the decade-old Navy Marine Corps Intranet contract, which expired at the end of September. NGEN is intended to replace NMCI.

HP Enterprise Services, formerly Electronic Data Systems, will continue to operate NMCI, which serves Navy and Marine Corps personnel under a $3.4 billion continuity of services contract awarded in July, which allows the Navy to buy back intellectual property rights, including technical data, software and software documentation, Capt. Scott Weller, NMCI program manager, said.

Capt. Timothy Holland, NGEN program manager, said the switch to NGEN also will allow the Navy to take back operational command and control of the network, which EDS/HP previously handled, a move viewed as essential in an era of cyberwarfare.

The Naval Network Warfare Command in Little Creek, Va., will operate the Navy portion of the network, which includes 285,000 PCs, while the Marine Corps Network Operations and Security Command in Quantico, Va, will oversee the Marine Corps portion of the network with 85,000 PCs, according to the NGEN concept of operations document.

NETWARCOM faces a significant challenge with this mission, a well-placed Navy source who declined to be identified, told NextGov. The command's workforce has been cut from roughly 1,000 to just under 400, losing 600 personnel to the Fleet Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Md., and the Navy Cyber Forces Command in Little Creek.

As part of NGEN, Holland said the Navy plans an Independent Security Operations Oversight and Assessment contract to assist with security evaluation of the network. Holland, in a briefing to industry in June, said this will include penetration testing, boundary defenses and an inventory of network hardware. Release of the request for proposals for this contract, a small business set-aside, is imminent, Holland said, and he expects an award next spring.

NMCI used networks from the Defense Information Systems Agency for wide-area connections. Holland said DISA would provide NGEN with cross-country connections and the Navy would award a contract for local connections early in 2011.

The Marine Corps will run the NGEN hardware procurement for itself and the Navy, and Holland said he expected an award no later than the summer of 2011.

The Navy plans to acquire software for NGEN through the Defense Department's Enterprise Software Initiative program managed by the Navy chief information officer, and Holland said he expected awards in late 2011 or early 2012. The final NGEN request for proposals for enterprise services -- the glue that will hold together all the pieces of the network -- will be released within a year, according to Holland.

He declined to provide the total value of all the NGEN contracts, but industry sources have pegged it at $14.5 billion, or $1.2 billion more than the total the Navy will have spent on the NMCI contract, which includes $9.9 billion for the first decade and $3.4 billion for the bridge contract.