Client: United States Air Force
Client Challenge
After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States Air Force could no longer risk managing its global networks with a patchwork of applications. At the time, the Air Force had many organizations running network management and security systems with individual interfaces and consoles. It was very difficult to get an overall picture of the health and performance of the entire network. The service realized quickly that it needed comprehensive view of its wired and wireless networks that stretched over the nine major commands around the world.
In order to enable proactive and global management of the network, the Air Force kicked off the Network Common Operational Picture (NetCOP) initiative and contracted with Electronic Data Systems (EDS) to build the entire system. EDS then chose Windward as a key team partner to assist in NetCOP’s global architecture, design, engineering, and deployment. In addition, EDS asked Windward to assist with training US Air Force personnel on the IBM Tivoli Netcool based solution.
IT Solution
Windward advised and assisted EDS with requirements, architecture, design, prototype engineering, field deployment, and training for a global manager-of-managers network management solution for the Air Force’s 9 major command Network Operations and Security Centers (NOSCs) and the servicewide Air Force NOSC. The solution included a Tivoli Netcool manager collecting events from Tivoli Netcool probes and 15 existing element managers, a Tivoli Netcool/Webtop presentation solution for NOC personnel and management, and a historical event database solution (HP OpenView and Tivoli Netcool/Reporter).
Requirements and Architecture – As a key member of the EDS team, Windward first advised EDS on validating the underlying requirements for NetCOP. To aid in reaching a better understanding of specific requirements, Windward facilitated discussions within the Air Force to develop common expectations for the system’s capabilities, performance, availability, redundancy. To further aid these discussions, Windward advised EDS in the engineering of a working NetCOP solution to demonstrate solution outcomes. This approach allowed EDS to develop clarified system requirements and reach common expectations with the customer on the required characteristics of the completed system.
Design and Deployment —Windward assisted EDS in the development of comprehensive technical solutions that not only addressed stated system functional requirements, but also provided a sound technical design for the deployment of a global network management solution with minimal involvement of on-site personnel. To meet the challenge of deploying a standardized solution in multiple major command environments around the world, Windward used its extensive knowledge of enterprise network management tools and approaches to assist EDS in the design and execution of comprehensive site surveys.
These surveys enabled the EDS/Windward team to quickly gain an in-depth technical understanding of the USAF network infrastructure and the site-specific MAJCOM environments for a Spiral 5 deployment of the initial NetCOP operating capability. For the Spiral 7 deployment of an enhanced capability, Windward assisted EDS in the design of an automated MAJCOM deployment that reduced on-site installation from two weeks of constant human intervention to two hours of hands-off installation after a 5-minute operator setup.
Guaranteed Result
Through Windward’s support for the NetCOP project, the US Air Force achieved several significant benefits:
- Consolidated presentation enables situational awareness for all levels of NOC and management personnel
- Immediate access to management tools from display manus enable global operational control -across the nine major commands
- Prototype-based spiral approach ensures that requirements mirror mission needs
- Manager of Managers architecture integrates information from a variety of existing toolsets into single graphical user interface
- Single interface places fully integrated performance, health, configuration, and historical data at the operators’ fingertips
- Automated deployment reduces management system deployment time by over 95 percent