By
Graham Davis
 |
|
Gary
Trevean and LEUT Issac Naughton sign for the KAZ and RAN
technology services. Photo by ABPH Yuri Ramsey
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The
four arms of the Australian Defence Force, the RAN, Army, RAAF
and Defence civilians...a total of 75,000 people... are now “talking
to each other”...electronically speaking.
On Wednesday, August 6, the last major group of computer users,
the 2000 Navy employees working on Garden Island in Sydney, were
formally signed on to the Defence Restricted Network, the single
computer network covering all Defence assets.
The sign over was carried out in the Garrison Building on the
island.
Bob Heginbotham, the team leader for the supplying contractor
KAZ Technology Services, handed over the
Kuttabul network to LEUT Isaac Naughton, the site manager and
Defence’s representative.
Mr Herman Roache, the expert who began the conversion to the DRN
for Defence personnel said: “About two years ago the then
Secretary for Defence, Dr Alan Hawke said he wanted to send an
email message to everyone in Defence.
“He was told he couldn’t do it because the Navy, Army
and Air Force all had different computer networks. The networks
couldn’t talk to each other,” he said.
Progressively over the last 12 months, all Services and their
civilian workmates have seen their old computers swapped for 80,000
new computers.
The last major unit to be changed was the Naval Information Network,
a total of 1160 computers used by 2000 Navy people on Garden Island.
“They received 860 new Optima computers and the remaining
300 were recycled,” Defence’s senior technician for
the Sydney project, Bernie Van Hilst, said.
“This now means a sailor at Kuttabul can email a message
direct to a soldier in Darwin...even to one in Afghanistan,”
he said.
“Alternately that sailor can go to RAAF Laverton, for example,
sit down at a computer and log in to his own data.”
As Gary Trevean, the Senior Manager for the Systems Integration
Service, said, “we are all now playing from the one sheet
of music.
“We can all talk with each other,” he said.
The conversion to the DRN left 40,000 computers unsuitable for
Defence use. They have not gone to waste. After being subjected
to the “Destroy” program in which all data is wiped
from the hard-drive, the computers have gone to and will continue
to go to Defence cadet units and to schools.
