The IT Directorate has moved forward on many fronts since the last edition of the CIO's Corner. Two challenges of note in the hardware arena occurred. The first was a project to move the Reston server farm from the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) data center in Reston to the Department of the Interior (DOI) Enterprise Service Center (ESC) in Herndon, Virginia. Servers supporting EC21, CFS/Hyperion Financials, IDEASEC, Procurement Desktop, Travel Manager, Oracle database hosting, E-applications and web site hosting, plus Reston infrastructure servers were included. We enhanced security and developed a clear path to support future client growth by migrating to an NBC-managed and controlled network. A parallel network was brought on line using the existing network in Denver, plus new technology available from MCI. System administrators first moved the test servers with the production servers scheduled to follow. The schedule was dramatically shortened by the need for vDOINET connectivity after the March 15, 2004, Internet disconnect order. In order to maintain continuity of operations, two teams of IT specialists made a heroic effort and moved all the production servers into the ESC in one day. The move was a success thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Amy Shaw, Network Lead, and the Lou Eichenbaum, Server Lead. We at the NBC are grateful to the BIA for helping facilitate this move into the ESC and particularly to Pat Maloney, Operations Manager, and Chris Sowder, Facilities Manager.

The second major improvement was the upgrade of two of the three mainframes in the Denver Data Center over the President's Day weekend. The IBM 2064-102 was upgraded to an IBM 2064-103 and the IBM 9672-X57 was replaced with an IBM 2064-106. This was an increase of over 33% in processing power (total increase of over 620 MIPS to a total of 1,888 MIPS) and processing speed. Memory was also expanded to 12GB. This upgrade enables the NBC to respond quickly to ever increasing demands by an expanding application and client base. The new machines can be upgraded to a total of 2809 MIPS each with no additional hardware changes required.

In October 2003, the NBC initiated a project based on the Department of Interior's (DOI) initiative to establish a unified infrastructure program using Microsoft Active Directory. The driving force for this change is to improve our security posture with directory-enabled networking; secure integrated messaging, asset and change management. The DOI set the deadline of December 31, 2004, for completion of this project. We formed the Active Directory Migration team with representation from each geographic location (Albuquerque, Boise, Denver, Ft. Huachuca, MIB, and Reston).

Implementation of Active Directory will mean a change in how desktop, server, file and print services are provided. The current file and print services environment will be migrated to a Microsoft Windows based system. Desktop operating systems will be standardized on the Windows XP platform, with Office 2003 as the standard office automation suite. Server operating systems will be standardized on Windows 2000 or above. Each geographic location has established a migration plan and several phases of the project have been completed already. We plan to complete the overall Active Directory migration in the fall of 2004.

The reorganization of the IT Directorate led to the formation of the NBC Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office (EAPMO) which has been actively developing NBC's EA program, visiting the Leadership Team, DOI University, and scheduling meetings with offices of both NBC and the Office of the Secretary. The EAPMO is collecting information that populates the Department Enterprise Architecture Repository (DEAR) by collaborating with other data-collection efforts within the NBC and in accordance with a policy directive from the DOI Office of the Chief Information Officer. This effort supports the DOI Strategic Plan, 2003-2008, and NBC is setting plans of action and milestones to build an excellent NBC Enterprise Architecture.

The IT Directorate is continuously making enhancements and improvements to the computing environment at the NBC with an eye toward good customer service. We are fine tuning our recent reorganization and look forward to even greater levels of success in the future.

For more information

Robert Scheibel

Robert_L_Scheibel@nbc.gov