By Geoff Fein
One of the nagging issues the Navy faces as it looks to implement open architecture is how to deal with a small company’s desire to protect its data rights.
In the case of the recently awarded Common Processing Systems (CPS), Virginia Beach-based Global Technical Systems (GTS) took the unusual step of offering the Navy the complete rights, Terry Spitzer, chief executive officer, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
Spitzer said taking this step is what open architecture (OA) is all about.
“If you give up all data rights to the government…the government owns everything. Then it can’t be denied that that’s OA, because the government owns everything and they can spread it out where it needs to go and get the best value,” he said.
Spitzer acknowledges GTS took a leap of faith with this, but he added that if the company can show results, it will pay off on the long run.
“We thought it was important that the government should have complete rights on everything because we figured if we do win a follow-on contract, it will be because we did so well on the first contract,” he added.
“We are looking at that approach across the board…when we bid on something, of giving full rights to the government,” Spitzer said.
In March, the Navy awarded GTS a $95 million contract for CPS. In May, Virginia-based Argon ST Inc., [STST] protested the decision, first to the Navy and then to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In both instances, the protest was denied. According to GAO, the Navy initially “rejected Argon’s proposal as technically unacceptable.”
The CPS contract provides for the design, development, qualification, and production of a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)-based, Grade A shock-qualified, processing system in support of Navy platforms. Efforts may include development of logistics support products, spares, and support services. The CPS equipment procurement provides a processing system that supports the Navy’s planned implementation of OA for Navy combat systems. The CPS will be designed around commercially available hardware and software and will provide computer processing and memory, data storage and extraction and I/O interfaces to support host software applications of Navy combat systems. The CPS will meet the computing requirements of other programs of record, including Aegis modernization (Defense Daily, April 13).
GTS teamed up with DRS Technologies [DRS] and Northrop Grumman [NOC] on CPS, and Spitzer added, they decided to stick with the legacy IBM [IBM] approach resident in the Aegis Weapon System.
“We didn’t want to upset the apple cart on legacy,” he said. “Also, the fact is, IBM is throughout the Aegis Weapon System and we had to be very concerned about not having to go back and worry about the software or re-hosting the software or putting a lot of new money into the Aegis Weapon System software. That’s where it made sense to stick with the legacy IBM approach, not to mention the fact it was a superior product for everything we looked at.”
And GTS looked a number of trade studies and determined IBM was the clear winner for the direction to go for the actual technology inside the CPS cabinet, Spitzer added.
The entire system will be incorporated onto surface combatants as part of the Advanced Capability Build 12. GTS has a mini version of its CPS up and running at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, Va., he added.
There are a lot of applications out there, software-wise, and there are a lot of people in the software business providing software to the Navy, Spitzer said. “[CPS]…is a program that has separated software and hardware, and its hardware application is basically a one-size-fits-all.”
“Basically, if you look at a bicycle wheel and each spoke going out is a different software application for the Navy, for specific applications, you go to the center hub of that bicycle wheel…really that hardware solution is CPS,” Spitzer explained. “It basically has commonality, hardware-wise, and can be utilized in any of those software applications. So it really is a very smart approach.”
It’s Spitzer’s hope that the Navy will adopt GTS’ CPS across the board.
“You pretty much want to keep the same commonality completely across the board and that helps in performance based logistics, obsolescence, and everything else,” he said. “The entire Navy is on the same approach path…it just makes good economical sense that everybody would go in that direction.”
Because of the size of CPS it is unlikely personnel at Naval Air Systems Command will take a look at it. But Spitzer noted there are applications within CPS that might be beneficial. “We will have to look at that a little bit more.”
“It’s my hope that SPAWAR is going to adapt CPS, but we are also looking at the possibility of DHS. If you think of the computing necessary for DHS to do their job, there is a huge amount of information they are moving,” he said. “If you look at border security, the possibility of terrorist issues where you can’t lose your data because it is mission critical, these cabinets and the CPS solution become very valuable.”
GTS spent a lot of time on the Advanced COTS Enclosure (ACE). Spitzer said it wasn’t designed by a bunch of people sitting in front of a whiteboard. “We were out on the ships, we talked to technicians, we quizzed people–‘what would you like? What could this cabinet do?'”
He added there were a few things integrated into the cabinet that GTS thought were important.
“This whole idea of turnaround at shipyards is becoming a huge issue because the fleet size is getting less and less. Turning these shipyard visits around very quickly becomes more important,” he said.
The ACE cabinet is not one single modular piece that would require cutting a hole in the side of a ship to be able to take stuff in and out, Spitzer said. “This cabinet actually breaks down to where you can take it in pieces and reassemble [it] and you can go on about [your] business.”
“When you are pier side and you need a quick upgrade or an update, you can do it very quickly,” he added.
Another advantage GTS is bringing to the table is moving away from older cabinets that would have 50 screws around the front door to secure the cabinet, Spitzer said.
“Our cabinet, we didn’t see that as a good approach. We have a one-throw latch on our cabinet. You pull that one latch [and] the door opens. It’s really a user friendly cabinet,” he said.