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New Governance Structure for Next Generation Enterprise Network Created

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS081030-04
Release Date: 10/30/2008 5:58:00 AM

By Eddie Riley, Next Generation Enterprise Network Public Affairs

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The Secretary of the Navy created a new assistant chief of naval operations (ACNO) position Oct. 15 to ensure the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) will be more reliable, secure and responsive to the Department of Navy (DoN) work force.

The new directorate, the NGEN System Program Office (SPO), will coordinate continued service for existing shore and garrison networks, support consolidation of legacy networks and direct the transition to NGEN while providing implementation oversight to enable enhanced capabilities within the future Naval Network Environment (NNE).

NGEN is the DoN's first step in building the integrated naval networks that will make up the NNE and is the follow-on to the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) when the current contract ends Sept. 30, 2010.

"The SPO reflects the Department of the Navy's commitment to the success of the NGEN," said Rear Adm. David G. Simpson, director of Navy Networks in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations for Communication Networks (OPNAV N6). Simpson has been named interim NGEN SPO director. The NGEN SPO will be led by a two-star admiral as director, who will report to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) as ACNO and to the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC). A Marine colonel will serve as the deputy director. Marine Corps Col. David M. Hagopian, has been named the deputy director.

"It is an enterprise-wide approach for an enterprise-wide network," Simpson said.

The NGEN SPO, a first-of-its-kind organization in the DoN, was approved by the CNO and CMC. It brings together the DoN's governance areas for NGEN – policy, resources and requirements, acquisition, and fleet readiness, support and operations – under a single command. The new level of coordination at the NGEN SPO will ensure that stakeholders are included in the design and implementation process and help facilitate a smooth transition to NGEN from NMCI with no loss of services to end users.

The SPO will include all of the functions of the existing NGEN, NMCI and OCONUS Navy Enterprise Network (ONE-NET) program offices and will reside within the Navy staff, leveraging the institutional support of both CNO and Headquarters Marine Corps staffs.

In the new governance structure, three key divisions have been established to direct NGEN design, acquisition and implementation activities: (1) acquisition, (2) operations, (3) programming, planning and policy. The acquisition head reports to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN RDA) on all acquisition decisions and to the SPO director for day-to-day and synchronization issues. The operations and programming, planning and policy division heads reports to the SPO director, coordinating with other commands and offices as needed.

The NGEN SPO is expected to be operational by the end of the year and will exist through the transition to NGEN, at which time it will be re-evaluated by the DoN.

NGEN is currently in the pre-decisional phase, with a requirements document approved earlier this year by the CNO and CMC. A system specification, currently under development, will further define the required system functions and performance parameters. The acquisition approach, currently under draft, will be based on a notional segmentation concept that breaks existing network functions into groups and separates services into those that may be run by the DoN and others that could be outsourced. Under the current NMCI contract, network services are provided by one prime contractor.

The DoN has held two industry days to get feedback from the information technology community on the NGEN initiative and expects to hold at least two more. The requests for proposals are expected to be released in the spring.

For more news from around the fleet, visit www.navy.mil.