Integrator Insider

By Nick Wakeman


The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is developing a requirement for operations, software and technical support for the U.S. Mission Control Center, which collects and distributes distress signals from ships at sea. The contract calls for maintaining central data bases, operating the geostationary operational environmental satellite system known as GOES, and providing support to NOAA staff and other users of the information. NOAA anticipates the contract will be for five years.
The Navy is looking for information on smart cards and wants to know if industry can supply the cards with cryptographic capabilities by April. The smart cards must have authentication and encryption keys and certificates.

The Navy also wants to know what kind of middleware will be needed for the smart cards to communicate with enabled applications for public key infrastructure. The Navy's Office of the Chief Information Officer is overseeing the project.
The Army Communications Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, N.J., is considering outsourcing the functions of its Freedom of Information Act office. The Army is looking for a contractor that can process requests as well as provide automation, telecommunications, records management, library, visual information and publication services. The Army is conducting an A-76 study to see if it is more cost effective to outsource the FoIA office or continue operating it with its own personnel.
The Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in Riverdale, Wash., wants industry input on how to build a procurement system. The agency wants the system to run on IBM compatible hardware and be available for use by multiple users. Purchasing agents should be able to enter data, retrieve information, make queries and complete reports.

Requisitioning offices will need read-only access to check the status of their orders.