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."

Comments

WordStar!

[Shanep]

I remeber Wordstar back when I worked for the Navy in the late 80's!

If they're willing to use Wordstar, they may as well just use vi. : )

Re:WordStar!

[foistboinder]

If they're willing to use Wordstar, they may as well just use vi.

I wrote my masters thesis with vi and nroff in 1987. It looked better than those written with Wordstar.

Don't fix it, if it ain't broke

[CounterZer0]

I kid you not, wordstar probably NEVER crashes on them. :)

Re:Don't fix it, if it ain't broke

[unicron]

EXACTLY. The farther you go back, the better(stability wise) software gets. Legacy hardware is even better. The only way you're getting a Vax machine to crash is if you push it off a table.

Re:Don't fix it, if it ain't broke

[swillden]

The only way you're getting a Vax machine to crash is if you push it off a table.

You mean: if you get a team of longshoremen with block and tackle and prybars to push it off a table.

I don't think I could push even a MicroVAX off a table by myself.

Re:Don't fix it, if it ain't broke

[unicron]

We have these Vax's at work, biggest single computer I've ever seen in my life. 7 feet talk, 5 feet wide, 5 feet back. You walk by it and your fillings hurt.

Re:Don't fix it, if it ain't broke

[awx]

I wanna work with you. Mmmm, vaxen... *drool*

I don't get it

[sys$manager]

This is something I've never understood about IT upgrades.

If wordstar and typewriters are working, why spend $6b to replace them?

A lot of IT spending seems like "make work" projects to me.

Re:I don't get it

[Shanep]

If wordstar and typewriters are working, why spend $6b to replace them?

Actually, funnily enough, this is a big concept that at least the Australian Navy seems to use.

When I left in 1989, I was told the HMAS Hobart had a combined computing power on the whole ship, of a Macintosh Classic.

Then again, when I left they were still mostly relying on analog computers.

Re:I don't get it

[Ralph Wiggam]

I don't have the exact numbers, but I think the space shuttle computer is somewhere on par with the Mac Classic. I'm no fan of the space shuttle, but it does get people to space and back.

-B

Re:I don't get it

[cmallinson]

If wordstar and typewriters are working, why spend $6b to replace them?

My pen works fine too, but it isn't recognized on my network.

Re:I don't get it

[supabeast!]

"If wordstar and typewriters are working, why spend $6b to replace them?"

Because the Navy wants everything tied together into one large directory designed for secure communication using standard software. Communicating encrypted messages is much eaiser when everything is standardized.

Re:I don't get it

[JordanH]

• My pen works fine too, but it isn't recognized on my network.

If it works fine, why put it on the network?

My bicycle works fine, but it's not good for satellite maintenance.

Re:I don't get it

[pmz]

Because the Navy wants everything tied together into one large directory designed for secure communication using standard software.

What a pipe dream. This is what IT companies have been promising for decades and have never delivered . Probably the last time this was accomplished was when an entire company ran off of one mainframe. One set of software, one set of terminals, one set of administrators, etc.

Re:I don't get it

[Oculus Habent]

Have you ever seen some of the forms the government uses? Plain text is not going to cut it.

XML, on the other hand, may be just the ticket they are looking for. It would Allow standard interfaces to be made for data entry and specialized for to be printed.

The Military still relies quite heavily on printed papers, signatures, and photocopies - things that can be forged. It would be particularly nice to see them invest a big chunk of that money into digital signatures and encryption, so they could eliminate much of the wasted paper and free up huge amounts of space (one DDS4 tape is alot smaller than 20GB printed data).

Of course, a change this massive would cause the mental collapse of thousands of officials still unfamiliar with technology and unwilling to learn.

Re:I don't get it

[Raven42rac]

wrong frame type maybe, (hahaha novell humor)

Re:I don't get it

[Qrlx]

The O rings could have in no way been saved by modern navigation systems.

Modern navigation systems? How 'bout a thermometer and a freakin' phone call to launch control? (Sorry to bother you sir, what with the countdown and all, but the ambient temperature is 29F. The SRBs are only rated down to 32F, and we've never launched before 40F before.)

But noooo, that would have stood in the way of the Great Communicator's PR Machine.

Yes, I'm *still* pissed about Jan 28 1986. I don't plan on getting over it any time soon.

Additionally.....

[mdechene]

And after this project is deemed a success, the Navy plans to decomission the USS Constitution.....

Re:Additionally.....

[BlueGecko]

Did you mean to have that double-entendre or did it happen by accident? :)

(For the curious.)

Antiquated, but more reliable

[vlad_petric]

I mean, the reliability of wordstar and even typewritters is infinitely higher than the one of Microsoft Word/Excel.

I'm truly amazed that the security of this country relies indirectly on products "that were not engineered for security".

The Raven

Re:Antiquated, but more reliable

[swillden]

I mean, the reliability of wordstar and even typewritters is infinitely higher than the one of Microsoft Word/Excel.

If that seems either insightful or funny to you, go try creating some documents on a typewriter. Personally, I'd prefer a word processor with a lousy, cluttered UI, an annoying paperclip that keeps batting its eyelashes at me and a habit of crashing every two minutes over a typewriter any day.

Wordstar, however, wouldn't be so bad. It wasn't so bad, back in the day. Assuming you could get printer drivers for it. That wasn't a problem years ago, but now... (yes, kiddies, printer drivers were once the job of the application, not the OS, or even the printing system. Luckily you could usually just type in a few codes to tell your app how to use your dot matrix printer's italics mode, bold mode, etc. For fancier stuff, though... ugh).

EDS is on the job.

[belloc]

But the $6.9 billion project has turned into a major technology headache for the services and the prime contractor on the job, Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS).

Hey, if EDS can herd cats, they can do this job, no sweat.

Belloc

Re:EDS is on the job.

[pmz]

ut the $6.9 billion project has turned into a major technology headache for the services and the prime contractor on the job, Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS).

Isn't EDS an all-Microsoft-all-the-time company? No wonder they are having a "technology headache".

I remember some of the navy apps

[Unknown Poltroon]

I worked for them 5-6 years ago. THey had this one older than god crank app that barely ran on an 80-86, buch less a penium that you had to nurse along, because the messages it sent could be read by the navys standard telegraph sort of thing. THis way, even the guy in the 30 year old shack on theat island in the middle of the arctic circle talking to penguins could read the messages. I wonder if theyre also upgrading all the hardware too?

Re:I remember some of the navy apps

[unicron]

"Report: I have no idea if you'll get this message. While ice fishing, the penquins broke in and did something to the computer. I really have no idea what they did, but the dominant male of the group tells me he's coming back tomorrow to finish configuring X, whatever that means."

Wordstar Rocks!

[msheppard]

I dunno if WordStar came up with them, but it had a ton of great keyboard shortcuts that exist today, but most people don't know about. Like Control-Y deleting a line. That command worked in the VB Editor. (I uh... asked a friend to test that... I don't program in VB, ha! Me, program in VB, d00d!)

M@

Wordstar *STILL* rules!

[farrellj]

Vi and EMACS are great, but for word processing, and I don't me lame desktop publishing which is what most programs like MS-Word and WordPerfect do today, for word processing, no one has created a better interface. Once you know the commands, you can virtually fly through editing a text document. Emacs and Vi are good, but they are designed for editing source code, not text.

Wordstar Still rules!

ttyl
Farrell

M$ Bob

[jimmyCarter]

Based upon what I'm hearing from my contacts in the USN, Microsoft Bob will survive the chopping block and, is in fact, the key component to the new Navy Intranet.

For those not reading the article...

[wiredog]

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.

WordStar

[misterhaan]

wordstar was burned into the first 2 amber monitors i got! i never actually used wordstar, but because of these i saw plenty of it . . .

Oldie but a goodie...

[toupsie]

remember using WordStar. 20 years ago.

Ha, ha! I know the feeling. Yea, I remember using vi 20 years ago. Oh wait, I still do.

Typewriters were a must!

[los furtive]

including, I kid you not, typewriters), and link it all together

Once all the dot matrix printers were replaced with laser printers, a typewriter was the only thing that would work on carbon paper. Remember carbon paper?!!!!

What's wrong with using old technology ?

[tmark]

Exactly what is so laughable about using WordStar and typewriters ? A competent WordStar user (and in the day, Wordstar was THE word processor for power users) could almost certainly outdo the best Microsoft Word or free-software-Word-clone user in 95% of the everyday typing tasks that people need to do.

And typewriters still DO have their place. A good typewriter is still the fastest way to fill out a form, or fill out a label to put on a file folder, or even, sometimes, whip out a quick letter.

Ridiculing tried-and-proven technology is about as arrogant as ridiculing conventional mail.

95% of computer users...

[raindog151]

95% of computer users would be just as productive with a typewriter and a subscription to [fill in the blank] pr0n magazines.

don't be knocking wordstar or typewriters when they get the job done usually just as well.

A good reason for typewriters:

[bravehamster]

There is a good reason to keep the typewriters around: filling out security clearance forms. You can't do these things on the computer (at least not the last time I did it). And filling them out by hand causes severe cramps in the thumb area by the 15th page.

Besides, typewriters just *sound* cool. And they make you look very busy with very little effort. Stupit soft-touch keyboard, I bite my thumb at thee!

Re:A good reason for typewriters:

[Mandi Walls]

Man, I wish wine would run that program.

Sadly, it infinite loops, as of last week's build (my form was due friday...). It's also so advanced that it can't translate between two different forms, even though most of the information is the same.

Hello bootlegged copy of win95B. sick, sick, sick.

Weirdly enough, it creates a zip file, that when you unzip it, has a bunch of applescript files in addition to the info. Livin on the edge!

--mandi

WordStar == pain

[Dr. Dew]

I still vividly recall being a high school student working on the family's first IBM PC (no hard drive, just two hard-working, 360K, full-height, black-faced, metal floppy drives). It was a History paper, and I was done. I went to save it...no dice. Out of space on my data diskette.

I substituted another diskette, and I think that's the precise moment I became an IT person. Because that's when I realized that a WordStar "Document" (as opposed to "Non-document," which IIRC was ASCII) file is opened when you create the document, not when you save it. So there was a little stub file on my (otherwise full) diskette that WordStar expected to see.

Could I print the paper? No, not without saving it first. Could I copy the contents into a buffer, exit the document and paste them somewhere? Please.

So I wrote that $$#@$%%$@ paper twice. And whenever I pull a boneheaded stunt by not thinking something through, I get a little taste of that sweet WordStar pain, and I can't say I'm sorry they're gone.

(On the other hand, given my very brief experience as an ROTC midshipman, I'm surprised that they're not still relying on punch cards for everything but Aegis.)

Re:WordStar == pain

[Dr Caleb]

I recall in University, a guy (not me) spent all night writing code for a project due the next day. He stored it on a 360k floppy, and so he wouldn't forget it in the morning, promptly stuck it to his fridge with a magnet.

He didn't realize what he did until the next morning, when he went to print his code.

Re:Are they seriously gonna use Win2k as the stand

[Kasommer]

Yes... they are using Win2k as the standard.

Dell, M$, and EDS are the partners.

I find the interesting bit that Win2K is the standard and the rollout is supposed to take upwards of 3 years. WinXp is not authorized at all yet Win2K is not supposed to be available after what? Spring 2003?

Interesting times ahead

Converting Technology Adventures

[Alien54]

This ought to be interesting.

Based on anonymous sources I know who are currently working at AMSA, this could be hell. AMSA is currently a test bed for microsoft development, and they are involved in "upgrading" their system, eventually replacing a 4 or 5 person department running their tracking software on PIC on Unix or something like that, with a windows based system with several hundred employees. Given the morale there (see the link for esplanation), it is not hard to get some gossip

Part of the problem is that with PIC, they can get real time information, not possible currently under MS. And some of the functionality does not translate well when you migrate out of a multidimensional software enviroment.

If I recall correctly, PIC was first devolped by/for the government to provide a multitasking environment with natural language queries on machines as small and slow as an IBM XT. It was and is from the start a combination OS/Database. Which MS is only now starting to explore.

I imagine that there any number of these systems out there in the navy enviroment, among others.

Typically this is a case where the MS solution is in fact an inferior technology.

BTW, PIC was part of the technology acquired by IBM when IBM purchased Informix.

It's more difficult than they make it out to be

[marian]

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.

Re:It's more difficult than they make it out to be

[zrodney]

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?

This is true.. When I was a contractor working at NASA Ames, I helped purchase some
pretty large computer equipment which took about six months of meetings and such
and really seemed pretty long and pointless.

But the really pointless part was that this gear was finally shipped to us, but
sat in the shipping building on the base for several months because
it was lost in there among all the other stuff that was bought a year ago.

Some of that stuff never makes it out of the building because the project
it was purchased for has been cancelled or the staff working on it are no longer
available, etc. There are no doubt dozens of these shipping wherehouses with
orphaned obsolete computer gear all over the country.

But, when you work for the government theres really no incentive
to rock the boat or streamline anything. It's like working for
the post office.

But unfortunately, its all MS software

[Mastos]

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.

Ghaaa!!!

[JimFromJersey]

As an ex-squid, let me assure you this is a bad idea. Why? If you lock a sailor in a room with a steel ball they will either lose it, eat it, break it, or fuck it. They don't need more expensive toys to break. To be honest the above only applies to OS's, Crypto-Weenies, oh yeah, and air-dales ... friggin brown shoes ...

for nuclear war simulation

[theflea]

Will WOPR be upgraded? What's the newest version?

Re:Take us to your Code Monkeys

[stratjakt]

Are you kidding? ADA was an utter failure.

It was supposed to be an common language for all embedded applications, and it's design goals were object oriented design, orthagonality, and was to promote clear and reusable code. It was to undo the use of dozens of different languages for different tasks.

But the applications were so varied, ADA started being pumped full of hardware-specific and mostly redundant commands, and eventually became a complete bloated mess. So each device had it's own implementation of ADA, and there was barely enough common ground to call it all the same language.

It was supposed to be Java, and it ended up more complicated than the bastard child of FORTRAN and C++, abandoned and raised in the wild by a tribe of assemblers.

Re:I wish we had somebody on the inside...

[Camel Pilot]

A shame no slashdot readers are fit enough to join the navy

What the heck are you talking about! In fact, I would venture a guess a significant number of slashdot readers work in one way or another for the Navy - I am one.

Were I work we fear the NMCI contact mentioned in the article. Primarily because it shoves MS solutions down our throats and takes away our ability to choose the best approach to an application. In the project I work for we are in the process of replacing older Solaris/Sun based machines for Linux/Intel workstations. We recently selected Linux to run Matlab to process data instead of the Windows machines suggested by a contractor. We use use Perl extensively to prep, Q/A and archive data.
Finally we use Perl/Apache/Linux to operate several intranets and internets installations.

Unfortunately, the article paints a real false and negative picture of the use of technology in the Navy. It is sensationalism crap.

My view of a piece of Navy IT

[Andy Social]

I only see a small piece of the Navy's IT structure, primarily the systems that deal with intelligence collection and dissemination. The current development system runs on Solaris 2.8, and they allow clients running Windows to connect, but the developers don't like it. Current military developers (I work with Joint, Navy and AF) seem to have a great love of using Java for the interface controls. This allows any properly-configured client on a network to access the server, and then the geeks can keep their servers MS-free. The military intell community knows very well how completely worthless Windows is for mission-critical functions. Unfortunately, the rest of the military sometimes forgets. Wasn't a cruiser knocked out by a BSOD last year?

The development and deployment cycle for Naval systems is on an entirely different time scale than the norm, even in the military. Navy systems get upgraded when a ship comes into port, if there is time and resources available at that portcall. Considering the current operations tempo (optempo for the buzzword-impressed), about 1 or 2 intell ships get upgraded per year. They won't tell me how many total ships there are, but I know it's more than a dozen. So, just the installations will take 10 years, if nothing goes wrong and there's no major war.

If there's a war, nobody gets upgrades if they're needed in the theater, or as immediate backup to the fleet in the theater. Makes time schedules rather flexible.

Re:Navy sub

[stinky wizzleteats]

Have you ever seen a blue screen on a 2600? Kind of puts the whole "wiping out most of the life on the planet" thing into perspective, doesn't it?

Remember that neophilia isn't necessarily the first criterion when designing systems designed to do things which affect, as you so accurately pointed out, most of the lives on the planet - all while being depth charged.

99,999 different applications

[Kefaa]

What I would hope to see is a case where the Navy says:
We do these things and we use these products/applications. This should cut the number from 100,000 to 1000. While not every government agency needs to act like a business, in 99.9999999999999999% of the cases the Navy (Marines, Air Force, etc.) could.

They intent would be to standardize on a set of products such that an application requester would not build their own or for that matter go off on their own to decide.
You need a database, choose DB1, DB2, DB3...
You need a procurement application: PA1, PA2 no others and these interface with each other.
You need a desktop, choose Vendor1Product1 ...
You need an OS, OSA, OSL, OSM, etc. and it must be an xyz compliant version, this network support.
any step toward a consistent infrastructure that does NOT list parts. (I was talking with a guy from my State government who was ordering outdated computers because they are force to list the components. What $2000 got you in 2001, is different from today, but buracracy only lets them buy what was specified in the budget.)

We do not want to see is 100,000 applications rewritten in VB, or C++ or anything. 100,000 came from attrition. If they are going to have to convert get them prove you cannot use one from the list.

I doubt however this will happen. There are too many interests that do not benefit from a smooth, consistent approach. Too many contractors who cannot make money selling packages, and too many buracrates who benefit from a custom approach.

My cynical side says to look for it to be $12 billion, and 99,999 systems.

Goat Rope and a half!

[QwkHyenA]

As a government contractor I've got to tell you that the NMCI has been a huge monsterous headache from its inception. Our small company has several contracts with various naval bases in the US. Finding information on when cross-overs will happen?, what new requirments will need to be met?, what ports will be open?, What software will be acceptable?, what servers will be allowed? has been impossible. One week we here that all webservers will be running IIS and then the next week we hear they're only supporting Apache! Don't even get me started on what DB's will be allowed to operate on thier network!

Another problem with NMCI is that once the hardware part is settled and running smoothly THEY WILL GET FIRST DIBBS ON ALL SOFTWARE PROJECTS! That's right boys and girls! So, if your company has developed a cool information management tool that the navy currently can't do without, within the next 5 years (so I've heard) NMCI will get a chance to replace your software with their version without bidding on it!!

And!! You ready for this! THIS NETWORK CAN'T PROCESS CLASSIFIED DATA!! Yep! You heard me! It's sorta like having a car with no WHEELS!!

Man I love payoffs and politicians! They both start will a 'P'! which is damn close to the letter 'S' for screwed!

what would you expect?

[alizard]

Hierachy is even more important in military commands than it is in major corporations. The people who decide what OS and what the major apps and who the major contractors in the case of the US Navy are probably getting their electronic mail printed and delivered to them... and they are deciding based on feel-good Microsoft advertising in Navy Times or business week. Political oversight? Don't expect it from appointees of people whose bosses got MS political contributions that got them elected.

Funny, but given that the Navy is going to be running supercarrier navigation and weapons systems off Windows 2000, i.e. the evolved version of the platform that turned the USS Yorktown into a sitting duck... the only people who have reasons to cheer this decision are the world terrorist community.

What would they do with the power to shut down or redirect the firepower of a US nuclear fleet? Live and find out, but if I knew anyone in the USN at this point, I'd be telling them they don't need to re-enlist. If our country values their lives so cheaply as to regard MS products as adequate protection... what does a sailor who's been in for a few years owe her country in further service?

This project is going to get US service people killed sooner or later, not just waste our money.

WordStar

[f97tosc]

OK, there have been uncountable posts now that discuss the pros and cons of WordStar.

The issue was not that everybody used WordStar and that now they have to switch. The issue was they everybody used a zillion different programs (of which WordStar was one example).

The idea is, as many other have pointed out, to improve communications. A first step is to make sure that applications are standardized. If everybody had used WordStar, they could probably have made this happen with that program, but in reality M$ Word was probably much more common.

Tor

Typewriters ...

[dougmc]

I've found that even today, typewriters are the best tools for filling out forms. Well, beyond writing it out by hand.

I've tried scanning forms, then editing the scanned files in various tools, but it never worked right.

They may be getting rid of some of those beasts, but the armed forces love forms, so they're going to still need typewriters :)

A friend of mine tells me that the army is trying to go paperless. They now get emailed publications and are specifically prohibited from printing them out -- and they're punished if caught printing them out. Ack!

I work on a base that is part of this

[_UnderTow_]

I actually work at a Navy base that is scheduled to be transitioned to this new network. The initiative is called NMCI (Navy/Marine Corps Intranet). From everything I hear this project has been one big cluster f*** from day one. My base was scheduled to be transitioned over a year ago but delays have pushed it back so far that we're not even supposed to start for at least another year.

This whole thing is such a colossal waste of taxpayer money.

Old tech works and can be repaired at sea...

[Jim McCoy]

Do you think that an A-ganger on this sub is just going to be able to dash off to Fry's when a critical component breaks? Subs are a special case that highlight some of the extremes of a combat environment. They are over-manned and many processes that you or I would look at and call inefficient and a poor use of technology are set up that way for a reason: if it breaks or if the ship takes damage then everyone's life may depend on being able to fix the problem. That means that sometimes it is better to put a person flipping switches or re-directing compressed air in the loop rather than a fancy electronic component -- if the person is injured someone else can step up and take over and if something breaks it can be repaired from stock onboard the sub.

Just because something can be replaced with a shiny new gizmo does not mean that it should be replaced. If the old process is good enough and is well-understood by the crew then what benefit is there to replacing it? It is rather sad that you could not see the whole boat as a large, complicated process and understand the elegance and graceful degradation in the face of component failure that is built-in to these systems. Maybe once you understand the technical challenges of designing fault-tolerance complex systems you will start to appreciate these boats for the marvels of systems and process integration that they can be...

Re:"Software too out dated"

[Maskirovka]

The article talks about how most of the software is too outdated to run on Windows 2000.... errr... isn't Windows 2000 out of date?

If they were using XP it might lock up in the middle of the ocean because it thinks they're pirates.

Maskirovka

US technology lag

[defile]

If you're comparing the US Navy's antiquated technology to some other country's Navy and wondering how the US, the world's largest superpower can be so ridiculously far behind, consider this.

While FOO may have modern systems now, 20 years ago they probably had no IT at all, compared to how the US Navy was running cutting edge WordStar. Such is the case for financial networks in the US vs. Europe. They're old and crappy here, but we've had them since the 60s, whereas Europe is only getting them fairly recently.

Legacy systems support is a huge bitch. And who the hell are Electronic Data Systems? I swear, all of these companies that work with the public sector have such generic names. Are they chosen just because their names are so generic or what?

Criminy!

Firsthand Account - READ THIS

[sethadam1]

Okay all - I work for the Naval Sea Systems Command and I can tell you the REAL goods.

We have been preparing for NMCI for years. Our original "AOR date," or Assumumption of Responsibilities, was Fall 2000. The contract award was delayed several times and finally awarded to EDS rather than the expected frontrunner, CSC. Rumor was that CSC was prepared to run with it. EDS had already disbanded their team.

NMCI has been nothing but heartache. The ISF, or Information Strike Force, a team EDS has assembled to lead the tranisition, is comprised of mostly freshfaced green sys admins who "basically" understand Windows 2000 and have decided to put 400,000 users, printers, mailboxes, etc, on TWO domains across the country. By my rough estimation, they may even run out of valid IDs for their active directory.

The ISF has been so unprepared they have pushed data inventory calls on us at the rate of once every few months. This has overwhelmed our staff and left us bankrupt energy wise. Most recently, the following two events have REALLY HAPPENED:

Upon reviewing our state of the art cat6 network, they told us they would "upgrade us" to cat5.

They told us they would replace our brand new Cisco switches, locked to the port by MAC, with older, less efficient models, because "our staff is trained on them."

The plan calls for swapping out subpar equipment in Commands who have less money and replacing it with better equipment poached from Command who have it, juggling resources but also leaving those command with less. The rumors are that they will simply NOT support a good portion of legacy apps. Also, word is that they intend to do everything from block ALL non-approved websites to lock the desktop to the wallpaper and screensaver -- with EDS LOGOS!!

The most elite support you can buy is "4 hours response time." Laptops will cost your outfit over $300 a month, and at the end of two years, it's taken away. Computers will cost over $190/mo. We could buy new equipment semi-anually for cheaper. Now they are forcing us to buy Windows 2000 licenses and migrate ourselves from NetWare 5.1.

This is a complete waste of money. Great idea on paper - absolutely deplorable and pathetic implementation. I'm embarrassed and frustrated as a taxpayer and eventually, I may quit on principle.

I've thought about going to the newspapers and sharing some of this information. As a citizen, I'm incredibly upset because it reeks of closed door deals. Your Navy is spending 6 -12 billion dollars on this, and it appears almost every command will need to stand up a second network just to function. How does that make you feel?

Re:I'm going to be NMCI'd next month. Some thought

[Qrlx]

I have to wonder how long it takes to log on, if you have the thousands of GPO entries in place and roaming profiles needed to make all that happen.

My girlfriend is in the same situation, and it's ridiculous. If she bookmarks a site in IE, it's gone when she logs back in. But the default bookmark for Hotmail is always there. Hotmail is blocked by the Internet filer. She can't change the screen resolution or background picture.

She spend her own $$ to buy a grade book program so she can enter grades, attendance, etc. on her Palm, and transfer the info to her office computer. Except she can't install any software on the office computer. The IT guys at her school can't install software either. To install software, someone has to get in the taxpayer-purchased car at the District HQ, drive to her school, and install it for her. The in-house IT guys can't even install a printer.

Then there's the BESS internet filter, which prevents her from doing any real research. She wanted a poster of Thomas Jefferson for her classroom; all the websites where you'd buy a poster were blocked because they had "objectionable content: swimsuits." The District's policy states that BESS can be bypassed for educational research needs, but there is no system in place to make such a request. She can search Google, but the google cache is blocked.

These are "new" (less than 1yr old) Dell machines with Win2K. They are completely useless. She does all her computing work on her laptop (PII-266) at home now, because the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Seattle Schools has spent to put a computer on each desk has resulted in a useless, locked-down-to-the-point-of-being-a-kiosk computer on each desk. This is also the same school district that just gave their superintendent a raise to $220,000, who then discovered a $33 million accounting "oops." The superintendent was hired because of his strong financial background and he has never been a school teacher or administrator.

Okay, I feel better now.