U.S. Navy networking experts and EDS are bringing a big-picture look at network operations and outages to all Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) users.

Since last year, the software, called the Network Operations Common Operating Picture, or NetOps COP, has been giving personnel on the watch floor at Makalapa Compound in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a clickable screen menu with real-time status reports on the networks they rely on to monitor the Pacific Fleet’s area of responsibility, which runs from the Far East to Iraq.

The pilot program there was so successful that EDS, a division of Hewlett Packard since August, is now working with the Navy to install the software servicewide.

Until NetOps COP, Navy command centers had to rely on intermittent briefings or e-mails from network operators to learn about scheduled maintenance outages.

“Before this, they didn’t have real-time knowledge. They would have to rely on the briefing that was given seven or 10 days earlier,” said Navy Commander Everett Hayes, commanding officer of the Navy’s Global Network Operations Center in Norfolk, which oversaw the pilot project. Now, commanders can see maintenance tasks in real time and, if need be, ask network operators to defer work that might affect the flow of intelligence or other information during a military operation, Hayes said. Commanders can work around outages and better monitor bandwidth problems.

NMCI contractor EDS developed the service. The challenge for EDS’ networking experts was finding a way to monitor the status and maintenance plans for the Navy’s handful of major data centers and thousands of servers, and present that information to personnel in a user-friendly manner.

Hayes said EDS “did a great job taking that complexity and relaying it into a graphical interface for any user without network expertise to be able to understand and use,” he said.

For now, the software is only available on the NMCI network, which covers the continental United States and parts of the Pacific Fleet’s area of responsibility such as South Korea, Japan and Guam. European and shipboard operations have their own networks.

EDS also holds the 10-year, $10 billion NMCI contract, which expires Sept. 30, 2010. The Navy is expected to award a sole-source gap-filler contract in January 2010 to EDS. The contract would begin the day after the current deal expires and run for 12 months plus a transition period of up to 28 months, continuing NMCI services until its replacement, the Next-Generation Enterprise Network, is fully operational. A request for proposals for NGEN is still in the works, according to the Navy, but EDS is also keeping an eye on the requirements for the new network.

-- Gayle S. Putrich