Defence Information Infrastructure

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Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) is a secure military network owned by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence MoD. It covers the various branches of the armed forces, including army, to airforce and navy. It reaches to deployed airbases and ships at sea, but not to aircraft in flight.

The partnership developing DII is called the ATLAS Consortium and is made up of EDS, Fujitsu, EADS, LogicaCMG and General Dynamics. The roll out has three phases: Current (for April 2007), Convergence and Future (anticipated by the end of 2008). Their approach is in essence to leverage Microsoft Windows XP (and future Windows platforms) together with the web browser Internet Explorer to access a VPN.

The basic concept is that web browsers are used to access applications and information so that sensitive information is never stored on end user computers. After a viewing session this intelligent network removes traces of data from the end computers. For example if a laptop computer is being taken through border customs, quite a number of nations (including the UK) reserve the right to borrow the laptop for a few minutes and while not observed take a copy of all data on the hard drive. DII prevents such copying obtaining any useful data or even applications software.

The intent is to support 2,000 MoD sites with some 150,000 terminals (or end user computers) and 300,000 user accounts. There are likely to be several hundred application programmes available through DII, with the aim of them having consistency in look-and-feel. Terminals may be fixed or mobile in nature. The ability to handle data classified as Secret is fundamental to its design. User logon leads to that user being able to see just the data and applications for which they are authorised. The network is to handle not just alphanumeric data, but also graphics and video. Voice, as in voice over internet protocol VOIP is out of scope and will be handled by a different MoD network. Similarly communication with aircraft is out of scope and is handled by a further collection of networks.

The network was conceived of in a 1998 UK Strategic Defence Review. The Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) formed its Integrated Project Team IPT in October 2000 and ATLAS was selected in March 2005, with contract signing on 21 March 2005.

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