Winter 1998

A Newsletter Enabling Information Technologies by the IRMC IT Department

- What’s Inside -

Modern Technology for an Ancient Sport   Cool technology used at the Marine Corps marathon.

Gartner Group’s Y2k Update   Here is the latest scoop from a Y2k guru.

Classifying Multimedia Information at Multiple Levels  Learn about this key security concept.

System Dynamics: Lessons in Boom & Bust, Re-engineering, and Brook’s Law Revisited   Here's evidence of the value of applying System Dynamics in the IT arena.

Common Sense IT Strategies   Read what a world class IT service provider says about IT strategies.

Modern Technology for an Ancient Sport

By Dan Quaderer and Les Pang

Running in the 22^nd Marine Corp Marathon on October 26 was truly an experience we will remember for a very long time. Seeing the ocean of 18,000 runners, hearing the boom of the howitzer starting the race, the cold bone-chilling rain, the struggle and emotion of fellow runners, the loud, cheering crowds, the excruciating pain in our legs, ankles and feet, and seeing the finish line just beyond the Iwo Jima memorial are simply unforgettable. 

Although the sport goes back many centuries, it was interesting to see the modern-day technology used during the competition. The Marine Corps Marathon used electronic chip technology to time the individual runners. The real time ChampionChip, provided by Burns Computer Services, uses Texas Instruments Registration and Identification System technology. 

The system operates by attaching a tag or a transponder to each runner’s shoe laces. When the runner crosses the startling line and the finish line, an antenna embedded in a mat captures each tag’s unique ID code and sends it to a computer. Benefits include the following:

• Actual times are recorded to prevent people from pushing toward the starting line to lower their times,

• Reduces the likelihood of people illegally entering the competition mid-race or missing key checkpoints (The marathon course had additional check points at the 7, 13 and 20 mile points), and
• Less timing errors while placing runners in chutes at the finish line reducing the number of race volunteers.

 Some potential negative aspects include: 

• If the runner loses the tag, he or she receives no time or, as in this race, no medal,
• Runners are required to return the chips promptly or suffer a fine of $30,
• Need for assistance from Marine Corpsman to remove the tag (after running over 26 miles, it is tough to bend your legs to remove the device), and
• Race strategy changes – instead of crowding the starting line, a runner would be prone to starting way behind the pack to avoid the delays inherent with the crowds of runners.

To get your race results, the organizers provided a 900 number costing $2.00 a call. The instructions call for dialing this number at 5 pm. When calling at 5:30, a voice message said that the system will be activated at 5 pm. When calling at 7 pm, it said that the system will be ready at 8 pm. When calling at 6 the next morning, a busy signal was heard. Later that day, runners could finally get through and the results were given by an "automated" operator similar to the system you hear when you request directory assistance.

We were very impressed with the accuracy of the timing. Dan’s official time was one second slower than the time he clocked on his personal watch.

A running record of the marathon was broadcast over the Internet. One could access America Online and find pictures and individual runner's progressive times throughout the race. A copy of the final results was saved on America Online and connected to the Internet. Participants could download the file and, using a word processor search function, find how they placed in the race.

More information is available at:

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/9582/timing.html

http://www.usaldr.org/tiris.htm

(Editor’s Note: Dan finished with a time of 4:00:53 and is contemplating running the Virginia Beach Marathon. Les finished at 4:25:17 and is still trying to figure out why he ran in the first place.)

 Gartner Group’s Y2K Update

Gartner Group provides a service called the "Quick Path Inquiry Process" in which one can access expert advice on topics ranging from electronic work place to IT management. Looking into this resource, Gartner Group was contacted and requested to provide comments on a Y2k slide presentation to be used for a future lesson. A day later, one of the foremost experts on Y2k, Lou Marcoccio, responded by phone and spent about half hour critiquing the slides and providing key up-to-date information. Mr. Marcoccio has testified to Congress on the Y2k problem particularly how it relates to the banking and finance industry and has been interviewed by CNN, 20/20, and print media.

The following are some of the key points he made during his phone interview:

• 94% of all companies have increased their Y2k cost estimates at least 2-5 times. This shows how elusive it is to get a handle on these spiraling costs.
•  Often overlooked are infrastructure costs such as those relating to networking. According to Mr. Marcoccio, many LAN and WAN components (such as servers, routers and hubs) contain date routines and this equipment need to be addressed.
• Another area that is commonly overlooked are non-IT equipment such as elevators, waste control systems, HVAC, and other building facilities. What good is having your computer Year 2000 compliant when you cannot get into building to use that computer? 
• Written surveys documenting Y2k system compliance are only 3% accurate. He suggests an auditing program involving face-to-face meetings, in-depth risk assessments, contingency plans, and clear accountability of all systems. 
• Migrating to Y2k compliant systems is an excellent opportunity to apply process reengineering. This approach should be used to streamline the process first, then focus on the IT system supporting the new process. 
• Gartner’s latest estimate of the cost to review and correct dates is $6.50 per line of code.

Classifying Multimedia Information at Multiple Levels

By Dr. John Egan

Requirements for rapid response and battlefield information dominance have made the efficient dissemination of multimedia information a major concern. Comprising this relatively new class of military information are: terrain maps, digital imagery, sound files, bit maps, full motion video as well as other types of graphics and sensor generated information. This push toward new information requirements is also accompanied by a thrust toward greater information sharing and system interoperability.

Within this context, multimedia information will likely flow between echelons, across service boundaries and among coalition forces. It also seems feasible that there will be many more users, each with differing needs and security clearances, that might also be sharing the same information.  

This development raises significant security issues. While promising technologies are maturing which offer the means to manage and exchange this type of information, virtually little is understood about how to classify and control this information at multiple security levels.  

Without such a capability, much information may be unnecessarily suppressed and could actually impede information dominance. Furthermore, it may also prevent the military from fully leveraging, the power of new information technology. 

In a paper presented at the 1997 DoD Database Colloquium in San Diego, the conditions required for classifying multimedia information at several levels: secret (S)/sensitive but unclassified (SBU)/unclassified (U) focused primarily on the multilevel classification of static digital imagery. The summary of that effort was that digital images consist of components (objects) that may convey information at various levels of classifications, and that strong analogies exist between the classification of these objects and the way in which conventional data are classified at multiple levels in conventional DBMS.

It also described the deleterious affect that current security policies such as the Bell-LaPadula model have on achieving an automated method for classifying objects and the paper further proposed a technique for the decomposition of multilevel images and managing their access.

Current research extends that work by proceeding with a detailed analysis of multilevel entities, attributes, and relations, and illustrates with examples how these might be manifested within a digital image. A system of secrecy constraints for images is presented and discussed.

Research also shows that integrity constraints for updating images might be applied in a manner analogous to that of conventional data. These constraints lay the groundwork for a semantic data model for security—one that is tailored to digital imagery. Such a model is currently being developed.

Present research is extending the analysis by applying the model to time-varying imagery. In this case, the multilevel security issues that prevail when a full motion video file changes over time and discusses what controls might be imposed to secure its content. In this situation, any single image may be unclassified, but in the presence of other images may convey sensitive information.

A report on this research will be presented at the 1998 Software Technology Conference in Salt Lake City to be held in April 1998.

System Dynamics: Lessons in Boom & Bust,Re-engineering, and Brook’s Law Revisited

By John Saunders

An example of a Boom & Bust System Dynamics Diagram.

Note: In Info Tech Talk, Vol. 2, No. 2 "A Quick Guide to the System Dynamics Technology," the basics of system dynamics were outlined. This article provides evidence of the value of applying this method in the IT arena.

Boom and Bust

In each year from 1976 to 1982, Atari, the industry leader in computer video games, virtually doubled its revenue. During that six-year period, revenues streaked from $35 million to nearly $2 billion. But then in the period 1982-4 the company’s fortunes reversed. In a single year their operating income fell from a healthy positive $300 million to nearly $600 million in the red! Atari was not alone in its comet like appearance and demise during that period. Companies with instant name recognition in information technology during the early eighties such as Osbourne and Sinclair and products such as VisiCalc and WordStar are now unknown to the current generation of computer users. Much can be learned about the rise and fall of these entities by studying a phenomenon known as "Boom and Bust." Interesting, but why is this important?

In the software industry, technologies leapfrog each other in cycles as short as a few months. Understanding the factors that contribute to a product’s success and eventual demise are critical to a company’s survival. They are also therefore critical to customers who adopt the vendor’s wares. Understanding these factors provides competitive advantage to both the seller and the buyer. Not recognizing them can mean product or even corporate failure to a vendor and significant headaches for those who adopt the technology, only to later see it fail.

Microsoft was able to recognize a real threat to its future in 1985 when Apple introduced the Macintosh. To counter the Mac, Microsoft introduced Windows 1.0 and then Windows 2.0. At face value this move would appear foolish. The processing power required by Windows simply could not be delivered by the mainstream chips of the period - Intel’s 8088 and 80286. But while Windows 1.0 and 2.0 represented a drag on the bottom line of MS, Bill Gates and his crew understood Gordon Moore’s Law of Microprocessors. This law stated that the memory and processing power of the microchip would double every year. Microsoft understood that the increasing processing capability of each new generation of Intel processors would soon meet up with the processing and memory demands of the Windows product. And so in 1990 when Windows 3.0 met Intel 80386 a new boom cycle began. But MS did not stop there. They understood the dynamics of the system portrayed in the figure above. The boom cycle increases for a period during which word of mouth and other factors increase demand. And while the cycle can be maintained for some period through enhanced marketing, eventually the discard rate will outpace the adoption rate, and the product will die. So long before Windows 3.x ceased its ascent, Microsoft began a new development cycle, one that would utilize the memory and processor of the yet unborn 80586. That development began as CAIRO, and was finally released as Windows95.

While many executives are aware that boom-bust cycles do occur, understanding how they occur is difficult. This is because of the complexity of the many interacting components involved. While many of those critical interacting components are known, or are embedded in the intelligence of the organization, the challenge of a senior manager is to understand how they all fit together. This challenge is particularly difficult when viewed from the standpoint of cognitive psychology.

Cognitive psychologists have shown the limits of human mental processing power and the susceptibility of humans to bias in judgment, especially when surrounded by others who think alike and who have similar experiences. Building system dynamics models gives a comprehensive method for examining a problem holistically, and to set priorities for including elements of a system. It is the only decision technology which allows modelers to combine quantitative and qualitative, concrete and abstract factors together and to watch their interaction over time.

Re-engineering - Merit or Mirage

Despite the widespread popularity and appeal of re-engineering efforts, industry experts have established that as many as 70% of these initiatives fail to provide any measurable benefits to an organization (refer to Sterman, John. "The Improvement Paradox," a film produced by Pegasus Corporation. 1994). The systems dynamics group at MIT under the direction of Dr. John Sterman sought answers to this dilemma. To do so they selected organizations where re-engineering efforts had both succeeded and failed. And then they proceeded to do in-depth studies in an attempt to discover the dynamics of success and/or failure in re-engineering.

Sterman and his group started with Analog Devices (AD), a maker of specialty semiconductors. In the early 1990’s AD was an industry leader in its niche market and for a decade had experienced a 25% annual growth rate. Despite its success, Ray Stana, the founder and CEO believed that the efficiency of his company could still be improved. So in 1994 he began a "Total Quality Management" effort and some of the results follow.

It is not difficult to see that AD’s production was significantly improved. So why didn’t the bottom line increase accordingly? As a MIT graduate, Mr. Stana sought out the counsel of the system dynamics group at MIT. The MIT group did an extensive analysis of the company including interviews across the depth and breadth of the company. Through this effort they created a moderately size system dynamics simulation of the company. The simulation had about 800 nodes and provided a dynamic picture of the functioning between operations, marketing, personnel and other segments of the company. It also included dynamics external to the company such as market share and market drivers. From this the MIT group was able to formulate some rationale for why everything improved except the bottom line. While there were many dynamics occurring, one of the most evident to the group was the "home spun" nature of the company. AD took care of it’s own. Despite the new efficiencies generated by the TQM effort, all personnel, space, and administrative capability were retained when much of it was no longer needed. Ultimately AD bit the bullet and instituted some reductions. Fortunately, increases in the market as well as changes in their product lines also provided means for filling out the unused capacity.

Brook’s Law Revised

In 1975 Fred P. Brooks, a senior manager at IBM, published a book called the Mythical Man-Month. This book became a icon in the information technology community. One principle Brook’s espoused was that adding manpower to a late software project made project completion even later. Anyone who has managed late software projects would understand this. When adding manpower, the software teams finds itself preoccupied with bringing the new team members up to speed, thus making no progress on the project itself.

Tarek Abdel-Hamid, a Ph.D. student in system dynamics, sought to verify Brooks Law. He made arrangements to study a large software project at NASA. He built a fairly large system dynamics simulation of the software development process. He included all the sectors which normally impact software project management including personnel, design, coding, and testing. His simulation also included cost and schedule associated with all these activities. His work demonstrated that adding personnel to a late project always made it more costly, but did not always cause it to be completed later.

Since that time his model has been extended to include all elements of software project management and has been coded into a Management Flight Simulator (MFS). What’s an MFS? Pick up the next edition of Info Tech Talk to find out!

Common Sense IT Strategies

By Ed Fitzpatrick and Les Pang

One of the companies that the Gartner Group frequently uses as an example of a world class IT service provider is Lockheed Martin. Ed Fitzpatrick, the course manager for the IT Capital Planning elective, invited representatives from Lockheed Martin's Federal Systems in Manassas, Virginia to discuss how Lockheed Martin makes IT decisions. A panel consisting of their CIO, Comptroller, Director of Strategic Planning, and Director of Advanced Programs made presentations and fielded questions here on November 19. They presented several cases to illustrate how Lockheed Martin balances value (investment return) and cost to make IT decisions in a very competitive, dynamic environment.

The following are highlights of the presentation given by the CIO, Steve Race, on the IT business case. Some of these strategies listed are common sense and some are controversial, but they are all based on the experiences of a successful CIO.

• Be able to tie actions to the bottom line.
• Limit long-term risk when it comes to cost and schedule.
• Create an IT-friendly environment. The CIO should be a partner, not a competitor with other parts of the organization.
• Focus on those operations which directly touch the customer (e.g., help desk, sales).
• Communicate an IT strategy that makes sense and ties all elements of IT together.
• Use public trade studies (such as computer magazines) to pick products and vendors. They contain the result of intensive research.
• Satisfy the customer, then the IT budget will flow. Focus on the customer’s visible needs.
• Make decisions quickly – don’t let a situation fester, or people will do their own thing (they are very creative). If necessary, make a decision not to make a decision, that is, postpone the decision making to a later date and consider implementing pilot projects in the meantime.
• Realize that ROI is not the sole factor in determining whether to initiate an IT purchase or effort.
• Choose strong, healthy vendors with market presence. They will be around longer and they support a large user base that can be leveraged.
• For software, purchase Version 2 or higher.
• Have continual, diligent upgrading of your systems.
• Set standards!!!!
• When implementing a standard system configuration for an organization, expect 5-10% exceptions.
• Be judicious in what you put in a standard configuration – not everyone needs a CD-ROM drive, speakers, or a sound card.
• Establish key vendor relationships.
• Centralize administration. Let the standards dictate the products.
• Accumulate product experience and re-evaluate every 4 years.
• Have a common infrastructure refresh – tie network, e-mail, office suite and file servers to desktop PC upgrades.
• Politically speaking, figure what’s important to those who control the money; talk to them and find out what their focus, direction and priorities; then support them accordingly.
• Don’t use productivity as the sole reason to justify the acquisition of new equipment since others will also use this argument. There should be a business case as the driver, and it can stress such things as improved customer relations, reduced operational cost, and minimizing the risk of litigation.

http://WWW.NDU.EDU/ndu/irmc/itt-previous.html

Editor Les Pang, e-mail: pangl@ndu.edu, (202) 685-2060, http://members.aol.com/lpang10473/default.htm

Graphics Designer Jim Looney