The U.S. Air Force is drafting Microsoft to help simplify its networks and software contracts, which could improve its computer security and deliver savings of $100 million.
The military agency is consolidating its 38 software contracts and nine support contracts with the company into two all-encompassing, agencywide agreements, according to a statement seen by CNET News.com. The move is part of the "One Air Force, One Network" strategy that the Air Force plans to announce on Friday. An Air Force representative confirmed many details of the announcement, including that it is expected to save the agency $100 million over six years.
"The consolidation will result in standard configurations for all Microsoft desktop and server software," the Air Force said in the statement. "The standard configurations will enforce rigorous security profiles and will be updated on-line with security patches and software updates."
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News source: C|Net news.com
The military agency is consolidating its 38 software contracts and nine support contracts with the company into two all-encompassing, agencywide agreements, according to a statement seen by CNET News.com. The move is part of the "One Air Force, One Network" strategy that the Air Force plans to announce on Friday. An Air Force representative confirmed many details of the announcement, including that it is expected to save the agency $100 million over six years.
"The consolidation will result in standard configurations for all Microsoft desktop and server software," the Air Force said in the statement. "The standard configurations will enforce rigorous security profiles and will be updated on-line with security patches and software updates."
View: Full story News source: C|Net news.com
Thanks to Hadiz from the forums for the heads up on this article
A similar story to this can be found here
Therefore the Air Force made a good choice.
Wrong. Solaris is the strongest contender at this level and also has the largest market share where EAL4 is required.
SVT
d'oh!
A single F/A-22 Raptor costs about $250 million.
I hope they stop getting these ridiculously expensive airplanes and concentrate on cheaper means of defence.
Unfortunately, that's a wide misconception people have today. Wars are won through the use of troops (manpower) and clever propaganda. Technology just makes things a tad bit easier, that's all.
Depend too much on techonology and it will lead to our ultimate demise.
sounds familiar?
after the attacks on pearl harbor,and BEFORE the nuclear bomb on hiroshima and nagasaki,the japanese military was almost wiped out,then they used the so called kamikazes to stop america's advance,crashing them to U.S ships
read about it before posting anything regarding air-power
remember when the Soviet spent several years and could never win over afghanistan...even on land.
Yea, like how Japan surrendered in WWII after all those US troops invaded the country. Oh wait...
Yeah, because we all know that wars absolutely have to take place in one of the countries that are fighting.
i think 100% that the software has been tested,so i'm confident on that decision,also the F-22 raptor is an expensive airplane because of it's technology,also their maintainance costs are 50% less,so in anear future,i think around 2007 the U.S military will cut costs by 40%
the cost of being the superpower and staying way ahead of rivals
Last edited by 69181 on 19 Nov 2004 - 02:13
At $400 billion dollars US spends 6 times as much as the next highest military spender.
Saving of $160 billion can do a lot of good.
Owwwww.... coke just flew out of my nose ... that hurts ...
db overflow : god knows what on earth is that?
Military ship have several reduntant backup systems.
Software failures will not strand a ship.
So their error checking sucked
The plane cost so much money to build and maintain that it started the JSF (Joint strike fighter) project between the US, UK and a few other NATO members. This plane is going to replace the Harrier, Jaguar, F-16 and most other fighter planes.
The fact is not even the US can afford to have huge squadrons F-22 Raptors , B2-Spirits and Stealth fighters coz they cost much. If the current trend for the price of fighter planes continue in about 30 years the entire US defense budget will go on ONE fighter plane.
Theres a good chance the F22 will go down in history as the most expensive fighter plane ever built, so stop talking about bullsh*t figures which clearly know nothing about.
Also why do think there so much interest in drone planes, now there's a scary though predator drones with little "designed for Windows XP" stickers on them.
Quit the belly aching. Deal with the truth about it. get on with your lives.
STV
Seriously, just shut the hell up. You never have a clue as to what you are talking about. You were pwned about 1200 times in the "Microsoft suing Linux" post.
Reasons for not using Microsoft Windows 2000 for this is:
a) Needs higher degree of certification.
b) Finds out their certification process is fcked up.
c) Reads too much /.
See here for other alternatives http://niap.nist.gov/cc-scheme/vpl/vpl_typ...operatingsystem. Guess TCO is important here too...
We have a server up in my shop that runs Windows Server 2003 and so far it's been reliable.
People are forgetting that Windows is a lot more stabler than it use to be. It's not like they are installing Windows 3.1,
Last edited by 15377 on 19 Nov 2004 - 04:02
Last edited by 69181 on 19 Nov 2004 - 03:50
You'd have a point if it were unreliable and expensive. But it is reliable and on a network of this size its not that expensive.
I have nothing wrong against Windows, but that's absolutely stupid, even if that one network was Unix.
By having the whole Air Force integrated into not only one central network, but one system(Windows in this case) too, would make them extremely vunerable should the system(Windows) fail because of a Bug, Worm, or even a probably hacking from personelle with Administrator rights/exploits an unfound privledge elevation vunerbility, or hacker from another country that can might inflitrate the server farm and get local priviledge elevation, which would affect all of the same System, as has happened in Widows and Unix before. By having a hybrid network of many operating systems, should one system fail, the others would still be running as normal, and also the Network should be componentised into seperate locations instead of having access from the East being exactly the same as having access from the West.
"Airpower hasn't won a single war."
I pity your ignorance
I'm am in the air force. You are correct though Air Power has not won a war, by it self, but neither have ground troops without any help from the air or sea. We all work as a team to fight wars. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't make any more retarded comments like that about my Air Force. And about the comment about the cost of the F/A-22, you would be surprised how much it costs our aging fleet of F-15s and F-16s to stay in the air.
You do realise there was a time before air or sea? These wars where won by purely ground troops, no?
the way modern warfare has developed over the centuries makes it incomparable to the way it was waged back in ancient times or even as close as colonial times (remember how the battles were fought then, two opposing armies would all gather on a field in straight lines and just shoot at each other?).
in modern times, you can not win a war purely with ground forces. You should take a more indepth look at the history of war and realize you really seem to know nothing but a misguided generalization.
No thank you.
anyways it doesen't matter if u like it or not
Wrong. This isn't Windows vs. Linux, this is Windows vs. Solaris vs. AIX.
SVT
last year the NSA announced they'd wrote their own super-secure version of linux so i'd use that one.
you may save money by switching to microsoft initially but you won't in the long run with support and licence fee contracts, trust me.
also going the microsoft way, may bring breaks in the security and truly give us web access to bomb plotting.......
imagine the new slogan....... 'where do you want to bomb today?'
Ahhh, Eduard, my friend.
It seems that these grand, sweeping and all-inclusive statements have a way of not being wholly accurate.
http://www.novell.com/linux/truth/no_mention.html
Linux can be cheaper in some cases, just as Windows can be cheaper in others.
We will have to assume that the US Air Force (and thereby, the US Government) have done their research and determined that Windows was the better solution in this case. But to make an across-the-board claim of one over the other will not be accurate.
sorry
--DK
Our Airforce is like the best thing we got, and now, the opening act of a war against us will be, (very easily) hack and crash their network.
Do you remember the air traffic control going down in LA becuase of microsoft? How about the power going out in the east? how about apps crashing and hacked all over the planet that runs on microsoft servers? This sounds like something half assed clinton would do. 160 mill is chickenfeed when talking about security.
Air power has won wars. Kosovo, both gulf wars, us pacific. Without the high ground, you would be screwed.
End of Rant>>>
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