By Geoff Fein
The Navy is expecting to issue a request for proposals in spring ’09 to develop the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN), the follow-on to the Navy Marine Corps Internet (NMCI).
The Navy last week posted responses to roughly 35 questions it received from the Sept. 8 industry day, Capt. Timothy Holland, program manager, NGEN, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
“I thought it went very well, granted it was one way,” Holland said of the industry day. “What we are trying to do is work toward a point where we can start a two-way conversation with industry.”
One of the things Holland would like to do is to start sharing some of the performance specifications the Navy is developing, but not until those specs are mature enough, he added.
“The first one I expect to be able to share very soon,” Holland said.
He added there are plans to hold a second industry, if not more.
“I’d like to have the next one before end of calendar year. It will be driven mainly by our ability to be prepared for it, in terms of what we can offer to industry in terms of information,” Holland added.
NMCI, the current system in place, encompasses 350,000 seats and 52 server farms, representing a total of approximately 700,000 users and hundreds of servers, worldwide, Holland noted.
The Marine Corps makes up approximately 25 percent of the network, he added.
As the Navy begins to transition to NGEN, the goal, Holland said, will be to ensure continuity of service.
That means existing hardware likely won’t be replaced. “It’s probably most prudent to use the same hardware wherever we can,” Holland said.
Until the current NMCI contract expires in September 2010, EDS [HPQ] , the prime contractor, will continue to furnish upgrades, he added.
According to the Navy, the plan is to support a transition to NGEN beginning no later than October 2010.
“As individual pieces of hardware reach a point in their life where they are not able to provide the same level of capability to ensure service levels we agreed to with EDS, we have an expectation that EDS will [upgrade] those in order to maintain [them,],” Holland explained. “And then obviously as those transition over, the new providers would…have to continue with some sort of tech refresh schedule that ensures continuity of capability.”
Whether the Navy will award a single provider the NGEN contract, or go with multiple sources, is being worked out in the ongoing analysis of alternatives (AoA), Holland said.
“We are still evaluating the different options. We have an AoA ongoing. It’s looking at the existing [contract] as a baseline…as a single contract…and we are comparing that to a number of different options which includes multiple contracts,” he said.
And Holland doesn’t expect the Navy to sign as lengthy a contract time period as it did with EDS for NMCI.
“I think it will be different in order to foster more competition. I don’t think we will use the same length as we did with NMCI,” he said. “It’s part of the AoA we are doing…what’s the right sweet spot if you will for the balance, competition, and cost?”
The interim requirements document has some specific new capabilities, Holland said.
In the first increment the Navy will focus on transitioning from NMCI to NGEN, he said.
“Primarily what that involves is transforming how the DoN manages its networks. Our objective is to improve operational control as well as design control of the network, as part of that transition. So that is going to be our focus in that very first increment,” Holland said.
Increment Two, which could follow very quickly on the heels of Increment One, will start to implement the upgrades that are in the requirements document, he added.
“The only real challenge we had and are still wrestling with is how to adequately describe the government’s role when it comes to operational and design control,” Holland noted.
Over the 10 years of the NMCI effort, the Navy has determined that it needs more operational and design control of its networks, just because of the capabilities the service has, relative to the external threats, Holland added.
“In today’s IT environment, networks are no longer just a business support system. When you consider we have so many users on the network–we are global in the nature of this network–it is more than just a business network,” he said. “It’s truly now beginning to be a warfighter system, in terms of supporting our warfighters directly.”
Under terms of NMCI, EDS owns the network and therefore they own the design of the network, Holland said.
“While we can certainly negotiate with EDS on changes to the design of the network, we don’t own that design,” he said. “With operational control…we certainly have quite a bit of operational control with the network…but we are looking to have the next layer.”
That next layer will provide “agility, flexibility and responsiveness,” Holland added.