CTSC Selects Ensemble for United States Defense Department Net-Centric Integration Pilot

Comprehensive Integration Architecture Supports Rapid Integration, Development

When Chenega Technology Services Corporation (CTSC) contracted to develop and implement a pilot integration project for the Department of Defense, the challenges involved were immediately apparent.

The CTSC project will test virtually all aspects of enterprise integration, including application interconnection, business process orchestration, composite application development and business activity monitoring. Ensemble is the only integration platform to incorporate the functionality of an integration server, application server, high performance object database and a unified development and management environment in a single, architecturally consistent product that supports rapid integration and development. This comprehensive architecture enables Ensemble to effectively address all of the integration areas that CTSC is exploring and makes it possible for Ensemble to play a fundamental role in meeting the formidable requirements of the integration project.

“The DoD is a global enterprise with information resources located on hundreds of disparate platforms worldwide and applications running in a large array of operating environments,” says CTSC Director, Joint Information Technology Center, Jay Ferguson. “We selected Ensemble for a project designed to demonstrate key concepts of the Defense Department’s recently announced Net-Centric architecture.” The project is a step forward in a massive undertaking that is designed to significantly improve and enrich the DoD’s global supply chain.

Headquartered in Alexandria, Va., CTSC is a certified 8(a) Alaska Native Corporation that provides support services, information systems development, military operations research, and technical analysis. The Net-Centric testing initiative is now under way far from the Washington beltway at CTSC’s facility in Anchorage, Alaska. The systems integrator applies technology and management skills to win government and commercial contracts that will provide profit, training, and employment opportunities for Alaskan Native shareholders.

Global Supply Chain Integration

The Net-Centric architecture will offer a common set of information services over a global information system, according to Ferguson. “We’re involved in one of the early pilots exploring Net-Centric technologies,” he explains. “CTSC is targeting the supply and transportation aspects of logistics with a focus on proving that Net-Centric concepts and technologies will work efficiently across a global enterprise”.

In effect, the Defense Department is the largest company in the United States. With a budget of about $371B, the organization includes more than 1.4 million people on active duty and more than 670,000 civilians operating from more than 6,000 locations. Given those statistics, it becomes evident that data and application integration across the Defense Department is a huge and extremely complex effort. InterSystems has a long and very successful track record in providing technology solutions to federal government agencies including the Veteran’s Administration and the Indian Health Service, as well as the Defense Department. Building on that success, InterSystems is committed to working in close partnership with CTSC to help ensure the success of the Net-Centric initiative.

“Ensemble is being used to integrate multiple applications running on a variety of platforms, including UNIX, Windows and Linux, as well as multiple data repositories”

-- Jay Ferguson
CTSC Director

Beginning with a Common View

The initial objective of the CTSC integration project calls for providing a common view of the Defense Department’s supply chain processes as they relate to 15 to 20 systems, Ferguson says. “Ensemble is being used to integrate multiple applications running on a variety of platforms, including UNIX, Windows and Linux, as well as multiple data repositories,” he explains. Subsequent phases will involve developing, implementing and testing human interactions with automated processes along the entire supply chain.

“We are going to take an order from the time a request is made and track it through multiple supply chain events,” says Ferguson. “The goal is to ensure that the information user knows everything possible about the order. That means monitoring where Defense Department resources are located as well as monitoring messages back and forth between systems.”

As Net-Centric is implemented, the result will be shortened decision cycles as real-time connectivity makes it possible to get information to the right people at the right time and in the appropriate format. “Based on early results, we think we’ll be successful in proving the Net-Centric case,” Ferguson concludes.