EDS Picks SeeBeyond For U.S. Navy Contract

Plano, Texas-based EDS tapped SeeBeyond's integration platform to connect myriad systems for the completion of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI), a $6.9 billion project the systems integrator landed in October 2000, said Rick Rosenburg, EDS program client executive.

In addition, Rosenburg said EDS is using SeeBeyond's technology to integrate systems within its own enterprise.

When EDS completes the NMCI project in several years, it will provide communications between devices for about 410,000 sailors, Marines and government employees at more than 300 Navy and Marine Corps bases in the United States, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, Guam, Hawaii and Iceland.

NMCI "will deliver comprehensive, end-to-end information services enterprisewide to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps through a common computing environment," Rosenburg said. "This environment will enhance system and software interoperability and enhance information-exchange capability for garrisoned and deployed forces, as well as [for individual users," he said.

Redwood Shores-based SeeBeyond is one of a team of technology leaders EDS assembled for the project called the Information Strike Force (ISF), Rosenburg said.

Other ISF members include Dell Computer, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and WorldCom. The team is working to simplify the Navy and Marine Corps' current IT infrastructure, which is made up of disparate systems that don't work well together, Rosenburg said.

"The Navy and Marine Corps currently have many computer networks running a host of different operating systems and security architectures," Rosenburg said.

"The ISF is creating an environment that has a single, integrated network with standardized software suites and only one security infrastructure to transport all voice, video and data traffic . . . [to help ensure interoperability across the department," Rosenburg said.

In March 2001, EDS contracted SeeBeyond to create a pilot to prove its enterprise application integration (EAI) platform, which includes its eGate Integrator, could handle the heavy lifting the NMCI project required, said Paul Hoffman, president of the Americas at SeeBeyond.

"We got started on implementing the initial integration for the network operations centers [of the project," Hoffman said.

SeeBeyond's work was a success, and by the end of 2001, EDS decided to use SeeBeyond's technology for the entire project, he said.

EDS also chose SeeBeyond for its in-house systems after conducting a similar "exhaustive evaluation" of vendor products, Hoffman said.

EDS' Rosenburg said the vendor is using SeeBeyond's eBusiness Integration Suite as the platform for its corporate business system, called the Extended Enterprise Integration Backbone. The backbone will help EDS deploy new applications and perform system maintenance faster.

The distributed architecture of SeeBeyond's platform makes it conducive to both the NMCI and EDS internal projects, Hoffman said.

"Our distributed architecture provides realtime information flow, and at the same time, it gives an environment that is fail-safe," Hoffman said.

"There's no single point of failure [in SeeBeyond's platform, whereas competitive products are hub and spoke and don't provide that distributed architecture," he said.

The vendor's support for Web services, scalability and packaged adapters for popular enterprise applications also were factors in the decision, Rosenburg said.

"Whether capitalizing on its support of Web services or its library of integration adapters for [tapping into the knowledge assets that exist in legacy systems, SeeBeyond is a critical component of the NMCI intelligent infrastructure," he said.

EDS and SeeBeyond have been partnering since February 2000. Since that alliance began, Rosenburg said the two companies have collaborated on solutions for more than 75 global organizations.