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Building The Navy Intranet
wiredog writes "The Washington Post Business section has an article about the ongoing upgrade/integration of the US Navy's computer systems. The $6.9 billion project is the largest Federal IT project ever attempted. The mission is to get rid of, or upgrade, all the old software still in use (including, I kid you not, WordStar), do the same for all the hardware (including, I kid you not, typewriters), and link it all together. There are 100,000 different applications that have to be evaluated, and then either upgraded or replaced. I remember using WordStar. 20 years ago."
One of the reasons for replacing typewriters/WordStar/etc is connectivity. With the current system sending a message from one base to another might require using snail mail, or a courier. Modern systems have this thing called 'electronic mail'. I hear it's going to be the Next Big Thing.
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I've had the experience of working in several government agencies that were in the midst of this type of situation. Fortunately, they were much smaller installations. What the article doesn't talk about is the barrier to each individual unit/cost center to purchasing common hardware and software. It is next to impossible for a US Government agency to buy the latest and greatest of anything because of how purchasing works.
In order to buy *anything* you must first go to the GSA (General Services Administration). They send you copies of their current vendor contracts. GSA contracts are put together either yearly or every year and a half. This means that if you aren't ordering at the very beginning of the contract cycle you are getting older models of equipement or software, for higher prices. The contracts are not modified to reflect current market prices or models. If you catch the cycle at the end, you'll be buying 1 to 1 1/2 year old computers/software for 1 1/2 year old prices. A win for the vendor and a big lose for the agency buying stuff.
But wait, there's more. Now that you've ordered through the GSA contract, you have to receive your goods. This takes a very long time. The terms for payment from the US Government is not what you would call favorable to the vendor. The stuff you've bought has to get sent to the GSA, then the GSA has to send it to you. Has anyone ever heard of efficiency in a government agency? I didn't think so.
So what if you don't want to go through the GSA? Well, then you have to write up an RFQ (request for quotation) and publish it so that vendors can submit bids. Not a short or easy process. You then must take the lowest bid that will meet your requirements and start doing the contract thing. Once the contract is in place the vendor can start work. Some government agencies have interesting contract regulations. For example, one that I worked for had an unpublished rule that a vendor could increase the price of goods/services by up to 10% without the contract having to be re-bid. Take that to its logical conclusion.
It's always more difficult when it involves the government.
"Suppose you were an idiot..... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeate myself."
I'm been involved in this "cleanup" for a year now and let me tell you it isn't pretty. While I think its a good idea, unfortunately, their goal is to migrate everything they can to Windows 2000/Office 2000 and get rid of shareware/freeware, therefore open source, products.
Of course there are tons of HP-UX, Solaris, etc boxes that will stay, but those will be in a completely seperate network and not supported. Thankfully, as a Java developer, I can move all my development to a *nix box and keep all the open source software I use.
Its all probably a good idea for the Navy, but I wish they didn't hold such a negative view of any software you didn't pay a crap load of money for.