DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
(U//FOUO) TARANTELLA Bridges the Desktop Modernization Gap
FROM:
Chief, Reporting Tools Branch (S1221)
Run Date: 02/17/2005
Tarantella \Tar.an. tel .la\, n. [It.] (Mus)
A rapid and delirious Neapolitan dance, which moves in whirling triplets, popularly held to be a
remedy against tarantism (a compulsion to dance, often resulting from the poisonous bite of the
tarantula) -- Webster's College Dictionary
(U//FOUO) Dean Martin sang about the Tarantella ( That's Amore ), the Italian navy forbids
dancing it aboard ships, the southern Italian city of Taranto honors it with an annual street
festival, and now the Reporting Tools Branch (S1221) is using the namesake software program
to display back legacy, Unix-based reporting systems on NT workstations. Now in the second
year of its desktop modernization program, SID continues its efforts to migrate from Sun/Solaris
to a Windows 2000/NT environment, using TARANTELLA as the enabling software -- and with
relatively few major problems.
(U//FOUO) To be sure, configuration issues and testing snags have extended the initial, very
aggressive migration schedule for some offices; however, as the new year began, approximately
20 percent of our analysis staff at NSAW was using HIGHTIDE successfully on NT workstations.
The HIGHTIDE support team reports that 2-3 TARANTELLA-related trouble calls are received per
week; nevertheless, the proper configuration of server and client software continues to be a
critical step in the conversion process.
(U//FOUO) As for MESSIAH , it has been tested in a lab environment and found to perform well
when displayed back using Tarantella on NT workstations. The real test will come, however,
when MESSIAH and TARANTELLA are installed with the HIGHCASTLE suite and used
operationally at a major field location. This will probably occur during the spring of 2005 at the
Kunia RSOC ("NSA/CSS-Hawaii"). Meanwhile, testing and training on NT workstations continue
at NSAW -- albeit without any "whirling triplets" or "delirious" dancing -- and the number of NT
users increases almost daily.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108