Joint Network Management System—a program update

Army Communicator, Fall, 2007 by William Righter, Billy Rogers

The Joint Network Management System program took a significant setback in February 2007 when the Air Force announced that they were pulling all funding support due to internal Air Force budget requirements to support higher Air Force priorities. The announcement came just weeks prior to the system completing a successful government assessment of its new hardware and software configuration baseline (Version 1.4). The new baseline separated the software planning and management functionalities and reduced the system's overall hardware footprint from seven transit cases of equipment (client/server based) to only a couple of laptop computers. These changes were user driven to accommodate operational employment and transportability concerns. Those units fielded earlier with the JNMS Version 1.3 software and hardware configurations were to be retrofitted with the new baseline beginning in April 2007.

LTC Ronald Jacobs, the Product Manager, Network Operations-Current Force at Fort Monmouth is moving forward with JNMS program restructuring as briefed to the Army's G6/G8, Signal Center and NETCOM; headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps; and Joint Staff J6. Program redirection efforts will change the management solution set to maximize land component force interoperability between the Army and Marines. The JNMS program now uses the same commercial-off-the-shelf network management application product named SNMPc[R] that is used in the Army's Joint Network Node program (now Increment 1 of the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical [WINT program]). Trouble ticketing requirements will be met by using the same Army's JNN/WIN-T COTS solution which is HEAT[R]. Network planning requirements will still be met using the current JNMS planning solution which a COTS product named Network Engineer[R]. The fielding of the latest JNMS baseline that was scheduled for April 2007 was delayed until June 2007 to allow time to make required contract modifications.

Currently, PdM NetOps-CF is reworking the fielding schedule and materiel release for resubmission and approval. The new baseline has been provided to the 11th Theater Tactical Signal Brigade to meet operational requirements in support of their Operation Iraqi Freedom rotation. The JNMS planning solution has been provided to the 335th Signal Command (Theater) to support their planning requirements for the biennial, Joint Chiefs of Staff directed, joint/coalition Bright Star exercise.

The Marine Corps has purchased and is fielding the Army's wide and local area network management solutions provided through the JNN program. They are planning on also purchasing and fielding the JNMS planning subsystem.

The Inter-Service Training Review Organization study that was conducted to determine the feasibility of consolidating all Service's resident JNMS training at Fort Gordon was approved in October 2006, but due to the changes within the program, it must be revalidated. The first iteration of JNMS resident training is now scheduled to begin in the first quarter of fiscal year 2009.

For further information on JNMS, contact William Righter or Billy Rogers, TRADOC Capabilities Manager Networks and Services, (706) 791-2721/2334, respectively. DSN prefix is 780. Email addresses are william.righter@us.army.mil or billy.w.rogers@us.army.mil.

ACRONYM QUICKSCAN

COTS--commercial-off-the-shelf

ITRO--Inter-Service Training Review Organization

JCS--Joint Chiefs of Staff

JNMS--Joint Network Management System

JNN--Joint Network Node

LAN--local area network

NETCOM--Network Enterprise Command PdM Net Ops-CF--Product Manager, Network

Operations-Current Force

OIF--Operation Iraqi Freedom

TCM--TRADOC Capabilities Manager

TTSB--Theater Tactical Signal Brigade

WAN--wide area network

WIN-T--Warfighter Information Network-Tactical

Mr. Righter is a Department of the Army Telecommunications Specialist with the TRADOC Capabilities Manager Network and Services directorate.

Mr. Rogers is a contractor for DoD with the TCM N&S directorate.