Subscribe to the Free Print Edition!
Celebrating 25 Years

GCN Home > May 21, 2001 issue

Network centers provide lifeblood for Navy’s NMCI

BY DAWN S. ONLEY | GCN STAFF

NORFOLK, Va.—On the sixth floor of the Navy Fleet Industrial Support Center, the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet is taking form.

Huge plasma monitors are mounted from the ceiling in the Help Desk room listing an agent’s name, the time a call comes in and the longest time any caller has been waiting.

Down the hall, workers sit at PCs and handle the tougher unclassified system inquiries. They can diagnose system problems, provide engineering and technical support, and use monitoring software to observe systems. Behind them, in a tinted-glass-enclosed room, a few contract employees monitor highly sensitive systems.

This is the work of the Norfolk Network Operations Center, one of six centers being built by the NMCI Information Strike Force, a partnership of companies led by Electronic Data Systems Corp. to support the $6.9 billion Navy program.

By month’s end, the center will be fully online and able to communicate with the San Diego Network Operations Center, which the EDS strike force is also building.


Employees at the Norfolk Network Operations Center, left, take care of problems. A technician, right, inside one of the center’s data rooms repairs the wiring on a piece of equipment.
“We are the group that provides the infrastructure support behind all of the networks,” said Dan Proctor, director of the Norfolk center and a retired Navy officer. “This thing has such an ability to improve the quality of information to the warfighter in the field.

“I don’t think there’s anything that will have a bigger impact on the way we do business in the military than this particular project.”

In addition to EDS, the strike force includes Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., Dell Computer Corp., Microsoft Corp., Raytheon Co. and WorldCom Inc. Proctor said 73 percent of the work so far has been done by small businesses.

The remaining four network operations centers will be built in the next two years in Jacksonville, Fla.; Oahu, Hawaii; Puget Sound, Wash.; and Quantico, Va.

The Norfolk Help Desk came online last Wednesday. It will handle calls from states east of the Mississippi. The San Diego Help Desk will handle calls from west of the Mississippi, said Annette Rogers, the Norfolk Help Desk manager.



GCN Popup