ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM)
announced today that the U.S. Army's Logistics Support Activity
(LOGSA) awarded IBM a contract to continue providing cloud
services, software development and cognitive computing,
constituting the technical infrastructure for one of the U.S.
federal government's biggest logistics systems.
The 33-month, $135 million
contract represents a successful re-compete of work that LOGSA
signed with IBM in September 2012.
Under that managed services agreement, the Army pays only for cloud
services that it actually consumes. The efficiencies created by
this arrangement have enabled the Army to avoid about $15 million per year in operational costs – a
significant yield for the Army and taxpayers.
In addition to continuing to provide managed services as part of
this new contract, IBM also will help the Army focus on:
- improving cybersecurity by applying the risk management
framework (RMF) security controls to LOGSA's IT enterprise. RMF is
the unified information security framework for the entire U.S.
federal government; it replaces legacy IT security standards;
- incorporating cognitive computing that enhances
readiness by anticipating needs, and
- speeding application modernization.
As part of this new contract, IBM also will help the Army
predict vehicle maintenance failures from more than 5 billion data
points of on-board sensors that will be stored within this
environment. In addition, the Army is adopting Watson IoT services
and a new Watson IoT Equipment Advisor solution that analyzes
unstructured, structured and sensor data directly from military
assets.
The solution, part of the IBM Watson IoT for Manufacturing and
Industrial Products product suite, includes IBM Predictive
Maintenance and Quality System, an integrated solution that
monitors, analyzes, and reports on information gathered from
devices and equipment and recommends maintenance procedures. It
also includes Watson Explorer, a cognitive exploration and content
analysis platform that enables users to securely capture and
analyze both structured and unstructured data. With the platform,
the Army will look to extract enhanced insights from its vehicle
data and recommend optimal repair methods and procedures. By
combining tactical vehicle sensor and maintenance data, the Army
better understands the health of its vehicles and can take
proactive repair measures.
IBM recently completed a proof of concept that demonstrated the
effectiveness of Watson cognitive
computing for 10 percent of the Army's Stryker vehicle fleet. Under
this new contract, LOGSA will increase its ability to provide that
predictive and prescriptive maintenance information to the
Army.
LOGSA provides on-time integrated logistics support of worldwide
Army operations, impacting every soldier, every day. As the Army's
authoritative source for logistics data, LOGSA provides logistics
intelligence, life cycle support, technical advice, and assistance
to the current and future force; integrates logistics information
(force structure, readiness, and other logistics data) for
worldwide equipment readiness and distribution analysis; and
provides asset visibility for timely and proactive
decision-making.
"LOGSA and the Army can now take advantage of the technological
innovation that cloud offers – especially cognitive computing and
analytics – so that the Army can continue to reap cost savings,
further streamline its operations and deliver services to its
clients," said Lisa Mascolo,
managing director, U.S. Public Service, IBM's Global Business
Services. "We're pleased to continue our work with the Army
to demonstrate the viability of cloud for mission applications and
the promised benefits of efficiency and taxpayer savings."
"Over the past four and a half years, LOGSA has benefitted from
the business and technical advantages of the cloud," said LOGSA
Commander Col. John D. Kuenzli.
"Now, we're moving beyond infrastructure as-a-service and embracing
both platform and software as-a service, adopting commercial cloud
capabilities to further enhance Army readiness."
"When Gen. Perna took command of the Army Materiel Command, he
said we cannot conduct tomorrow's operations using yesterday's
processes and procedures," Kuenzli added. "He has since emphasized
understanding the leading indicators to readiness, and getting in
front of the Army's logistics challenges. The services we have
received from IBM and the potential of IBM Watson IoT truly enable
LOGSA to deliver cutting-edge business intelligence and tools to
give the Army unprecedented logistics support at efficient and
affordable means."
In addition to private cloud deployments, IBM manages five
dedicated federal cloud data centers, including a cloud environment
accredited up to impact* level 5 (IL-5). These were built to meet
Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) and
Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements
for government workloads.
*The Defense Information System Agency's (DISA's)
information impact levels consider the potential impact of
information being compromised. IL-5 gives the cloud provider the
authority to manage controlled, unclassified information. For IBM's
work with the Army's private cloud at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., the Army expects the company
to achieve DISA's IL-6 – the agency's highest level – by early
2018, which would certify IBM to work with classified information
up to "secret." Presently, IBM is the only company authorized at
IL-5 to run IaaS solutions on government premises.
About IBM Cloud
For more on IBM Cloud, visit www.ibm.com/cloud-computing
More about LOGSA
LOGSA is the U.S. Army's leader for achieving the service's top
priority – readiness - and is home to the Logistics
Information Warehouse (LIW), the Army's official storehouse for
collecting, storing, organizing and delivering logistics data. It
provides critical logistics information capabilities through
analytics tools and business intelligence solutions to acquire,
manage, equip and sustain the Army's materiel needs. LIW provides
services to more than 65,000 users and 150 direct trading partners
worldwide.
Contact Information:
Lisa Meyer
IBM U.S. Federal Media
703 318 1294 | Mobile: 703 309 7758
Tyler Allen
IBM Cloud Media
Mobile: 703 895 4272
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SOURCE IBM