- Kable, Thursday 21 May 2009 16.35 BST
Fourteen years is a long time for a computer system to remain operational. It says something about the continuity of Army operations that its Unit Computing system (Unicom) supported 450 units and 12,500 user terminals in basically the same form from 1994 to 2008.
It is only in the past few months that it has gone through a radical change, with a transition from a distributed database model to a centralised multi server system. It is now providing a platform for what its senior software manager hopes could lead to a solution for all the UK's armed forces.
A number of factors combined to prompt the change. In 2007 the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA), which handles payroll for the three services, took that function away from Unicom, leaving it to cover unit stores and equipment management, soldiers' personal equipment holdings and the Army's Imprest accounting facility.
Meanwhile, the development of the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII), provided a potential infrastructure for access to applications on a central server. Also, the distributed fleet of servers, terminals and software was demanding more maintenance, and the system was character based, relying on technology that was widely used in early 1990s but, with the development of graphical user interface (GUI) systems, is becoming obsolete.
Martin Abbott, head of the Unisoft software division of Unicom, says that when he joined in 2004 he identified a further problem.
"Nobody had taken ownership in the late 1990s and I saw it was a problem for us," he says. "I've tried to pull it all together but have had to do it on an annual basis, where it has been a constant battle to get funding."
Abbott began talking with Oracle and IBM and by the end of 2005 developed a business case for a move from a distributed system to a central server. It provided for interfaces with 13 systems, including the JPA payroll service. The purpose was for it to download relevant information from Army units and automatically update Unicom every night, ensuring that central administration and the unit have an up to date view.
Other interfaces include those with the stores system and the one for global logistics. Creating these brought 450 virtual databases onto a centralised multi server set-up, giving each unit the ability to view its own information and enabling central command to extract data to improve its management processes.
The system went live in August 2008, with the DII providing the infrastructure for users to access the applications. It utilises satellite technology for out of barracks systems, and serves about 450 units at 300 locations with 12,500 terminals. The system is being used by 2,000-2,500 users each day.
The system consists of primary and secondary server stacks in two buildings, linked by multiple dedicated fibres that take two routes. Content service switches connect the system to the users, distributing the load between the available servers.
There are arrays of servers for the applications and the databases, the latter running Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) and connected by a pair of dedicated 1Gb networks. There are also 450 virtual database partitions for each of the Army units using the system.
Resilience is provided by the cluster database manager, which monitors each database in the RAC and automatically prompts a restart it if it fails, and physical disc mirroring for the two storage area networks (SANs). An Oracle Application Server Manager provides additional mirroring from one SAN to the other, and the company's Enterprise Manager Grid Control software monitors the system and nodes.
The system is supported by a Service Management Centre and has environments for live work, integration and testing, development, disaster recovery, and the system build and load process.
The project cost just under £2m and went live on time and on budget, but Abbott acknowledges that the team ran into some problems on the way. He says the software for the Field Equipment Management Information System (Femis) was not up to scratch to work on the centralised server, and that he took the development work back in-house to ensure it worked effectively.
"Because we put it in and modernised the technology it gives us a nice footprint for systems such as the Management of Joint Deployed Inventory (a logistics system for moving materiel to units) and the JPA," he says.
It was also a stiff challenge to migrate the character based technology to UGI and feed it into the new virtual databases, cleansing the information they did so. But he says that thorough planning enabled them to carry out the migration in a few days.
"Cultural change was another problem," he adds. "We had to reorganise the way we operate to deliver a centralised solution rather than a distributed one, and there was a fear of instability in moving away from a character based system."
He says the team decided to stay with Unix rather than move to a Windows environment because of a perception that it is easier to secure.
Unicom is now being used for a group of applications developed by Unisoft: Unicom Q for front line stores and equipment; Femis for engineering support; and Imprest for accounting. In addition, there are plans to work with Oracle on developing a productivity tool for the system, and to develop an online help channel, using a series of documents, to reduce the pressure on the call centre. Abbott says he hopes these will be in place by the final quarter of 2009-10.
He says the change has delivered a number of business improvements, including quick transfers of data from the JPA to Unicom, and the provision of consolidated management information for unit stores and equipment holdings. Also, a reduction in the need for maintenance has provided cost savings, and there should be more once the out of barracks systems are replaced.
Abbott cannot take future developments for granted, largely because he has to make a case for fresh funding every year. But he says there has been an upside to this, as it has kept up the profile of the project, encouraged senior officers to keep a close eye on it, and provided the a spur to take it forward over the past five years.
The plan is for Unicom to support changes in the business requirement for the Army until a tri-service solution takes over for the three armed forces. Abbott believes that the system has laid the ground for a more universal solution.
"We've made a platform they can work from and a model they can take forward," he says.
First published in GC magazine, May 2009. Apply for a subscription
