DISA budgets $205.2 million for NCES over three years
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By Bob Brewin The Defense Information Systems Agency has budgeted $205.2 million for its Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) program over the next three years, with more than half of the spending planned in 2009.
By Bob Brewin
The Defense Information Systems Agency has budgeted $205.2 million for its Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) program over the next three years, with more than half of the spending planned in 2009.
The agency has budgeted $269.4 million in operations and maintenance (O&M) for the Defense Information Systems Network (DISN) which provides global connectivity for the Defense Department and said this funding will help support anytime, anywhere communications with an emphasis on 'power to the edge' systems to support deployed units.
To support this effort to push communications to the tactical edge, DISA plans $24.1 million in O&M funding over the next three years to beef up its satellite teleports with systems capable of operating with a wide range of military and commercial satellite and connecting them to the terrestrial Global Information Grid.
DISA plans to fund its Defense Spectrum Organization (DSO) with a planned $113.2 million O&M budget over the next three years and thus funding will help DOD manage increasingly value radio communications spectrum used by tactical as well as satellite radio systems.
A key mission for the DSO this year, the DISA budget said, is preparing for the World Radio Conference this fall which will determine global spectrum allocations for emerging mobile wireless technologies and high frequency radio spectrum used by DOD tactical units.
The NCES operations and maintenance budget is $28.0 million in 2007, $29.4 million in 2008 and $86.9 million in 2009 for a total of $144.8 million.
DISA has developed a three year NCES procurement budget of $60.4 million, with $28.9 million already budgeted for the 2007 fiscal year and planned spending of $10.8 million in 2008 and $20.7 million in 2009.
DISA said it plans to use NCES to replace stovepiped interfaces between Defense Department networks and information systems with a set of enterprise services which will make data visible to a wide range of DOD users through the use of metadata tagging and Web discovery, search and collaboration tools.
DISA awarded its first NCES collaboration tool contract, valued at $17 million, to IBM in July 2006, and plans to award a second contract this June.
The IBM NCES collaboration tool offering is built around the company's Lotus Sametime software suite, which includes instant messaging, Web conferencing, white board tools, application sharing, broadcasting, chat, and audio and video capabilities.
The DISN funding supports key elements of a ten year evolutionary timeline which includes pushing voice, data and video Internet Protocol-based services to the tactical edge and budgets for increased contractor support and maintenance activities, primarily in satellite communications.
The DSO O&M budget peaks at $51 million in this year and then declines to a planned $29.6 million in 2008 and edges up to $32.6 million in 2009. DISA said the sharp decline between the 2007 and 2008 DSO budgets represents a one time transfer of $21.7 million in 2007 for spectrum relocation activities in 2007.
The DOD 2008 research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) budget requests $18.6 million operational systems development funding for the DSO Joint Spectrum Center in 2008, up $6.2 million from 2007.
DISA currently operates six teleports globally and they three year budget will fund installation of equipment that will support operation with commercial and military satellites operating in the C, Ka, KU and X bands as well as military satellites operating in the extreme and ultra high frequency bands.
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