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(S//REL) Interim Mission Assurance Facility to Stand Up
FROM:
CES Systems Engineering Office (S3106)
Run Date: 11/05/2003
(TS//REL) The tragic events of September 11, 2001 brought into focus a terrible vulnerability
faced by the National Security Agency. That is, NSA's ability to protect the nation through
SIGINT is at severe risk due to the single point of failure represented by the Fort Meade
campus. Should NSA lose this campus, the nation would go deaf. Making the problem more
difficult is that NSA's assets at Fort Meade represent multi-billons of dollars invested over multidecades. In response to this challenge, the Mission Assurance (MA) project was initiated. The
SID MA team is made up of elements from CES , other SID organizations, ITIS, Eagle, LF/Corps
of Engineers, Security, CIO, Acquisition and Finance, and others.
(S//REL) The SID MA vision has been to protect the nation by protecting the mission, and to do
it sooner than anyone could think possible. The strategy involved creating an Intellectual Capital
Recovery (ICR) mechanism to store the "blueprints" to the SIGINT factory, as well as creating a
24x7 "load-sharing" factory all off of the Fort Meade campus.
has been designated as
the interim MA facility. The goal is to distribute as much capability as possible in a robust
fashion, although at a substantially reduced capacity.
(S//SI//REL) Due to financial limitations,
equivalent to one year:
has to be implemented in phases roughly
Phase 1 in FY03 obtained, prepared, and secured
and created the ICR capability.
Mission population concentrated on the CES mission.
Phase 2 will focus on adding in Analysis & Production and reporting databases and servers, and
CARILLON .
Phase 3 will add the National Time Sensitive System, Trailblazer, and emergency relocation
watch centers for four 24x7 cells.
Phase 4 will add in non-COMINT missions, a cryptanalytic expansion, and Special Access
Programs.
Phase A, running in parallel with Phase 2, will serve to protect the IAD mission.
(TS//SI//REL)
Phase 1 is now in "limited operational testing". Complete mission stand-up
and IOC will occur over the next few months. Because
exists due to acts of terrorists on
9-11, terrorist-related communications were deliberately chosen to be the first bits sent to
. On September 29 of this year, within one fiscal year of initiation,
successfully
processed its first bits against a terrorist-related target.
(TS//REL)
a subsequent permanent MA facility or facilities, and the entire MA program
have a long way to go. Work to date is necessary but not sufficient. However, the tremendous
progress made over the last year has already provided NSA a capability unique in its 50-year
history. And, it has come in on time and within the MA budget. The
success is a great
example of what cross-organizational teaming and a passion for the mission can accomplish.
(S//REL) You can help! The SID MA ICR back-up and restoration teams want to hear from you.
If you have critical softcopy Intellectual Capital (e.g. source code trees, scripts, target
knowledge databases, etc.) we want to ensure that your systems have been identified and,
shortly, added to the list of items to be backed-up at
. Please feel free to contact us for
further information. We don't want anything to fall between the cracks.
(U//FOUO) POC:
can be reached at
(grey) or
nsa.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108