Collaborative Messaging System - For the next generation US Defense Messaging System (DMS)

Lockheed Martin, Microsoft and Boldon James respond to the needs of US messaging users by developing a new generation of DMS, the Collaborative Messaging System (CMS). All three organisations have a deep understanding of global messaging systems and the specific needs of the US Defense Messaging community.

Based on Microsoft commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software products rather than costly custom software code, CMS offers the DoD improved standards of functionality, significantly enhanced ease of use, reliability, performance and a lower total cost of ownership. Most significantly CMS does not supersede existing Defense Messaging System infrastructure but enhances it offering the improvements discussed above without the need to replace from the ground up.

Figure 1: DMS Outlook Web Access (OWA) Client

Key Benefits

• Future – CMS is built upon Microsoft COTS platforms. As such it is future proofed to support all new capabilities such as Chat, Presence, Collaboration, Unified Messaging etc. These capabilities, which will form part of any Future Information Exchange programme, will just become accessible with CMS. Competitive proprietary solutions will have to build these capabilities from the ground up.
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) - CMS will cost MUCH less than Telos over 1, 3 or 5 years. This is because of the commonality between CMS and DMS as emphasised below:
• Hardware Investment - CMS server is just an extension of the current Exchange Server. There is no need to buy new servers or learn new maintenance skills.
• Software Licencing - The Domain Fortezza Server and the Full Outlook (Fortezza-less) client (Defined as “the Minimum Build”) are supplied at no additional costs for licenced DMS users. Further components are flexibly priced and both Lockheed and Boldon James have committed “Not to be Beaten on Price”
• Training - CMS is basically Exchange and Outlook. End Users and Administrators will be immediately familiar with the products. The new web-client is standard Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) with just half-a-dozen added fields. It is intuitive and familiar.
• Operational Flexibility - CMS is Exchange and Outlook. The essence of the system is deployed and in use throughout DoD. Any current DMS User could sit in front of a CMS OWA client and use it. Its Deployable on a minimal system with offline working, a clear winner in the tactical arena.
• COTS - CMS is basically Microsoft COTS. This brings inherent benefits and facilities, such as Auto Archive, Message Rules, Calendaring, Tasks.
• Performance and Reliability - The core CMS server is Microsoft Exchange, which already supports in excess of 100 million users world wide. The clients are standard Microsoft Outlook.
• Extensibility - The Exchange core to CMS supports multi-processors and clustering giving a clear system growth path. Perhaps more importantly however is the “Open” nature of CMS. With a published schema XML interface, CMS is already BizTalk and SharePoint enabled.
• Security - The CMS web client is a genuine “Zero Footprint” client, there are no downloaded Active X controls or objects thus mitigating users concerns that downloads represent a risk.
• Support - CMS is based upon existing Microsoft and DMS technology already familiar to DMS support. This familiarity improves support quality, responsiveness and the speed of resolution.
• Reachback – CMS supports reachback in a resilient and secure manner. CMS has two alternative solutions for ReachBack; The OWA client is a true zero footprint client. There is no need for any software to be installed on the desktop, this is a major advantage compared to competitor solutions that require desktop installations. The second CMS Reachback option is the use the traditional full Outlook DMS client in “Fortezza-less” mode. This does have the disadvantage of having deployed client software, but since it is a complete client, it is completely resilient to network disruptions. Users can prepare and read messages regardless of the network connection. Outlook seamlessly manages intermittent connections without user involvement.

How it works

Exchange Domain Fortezza™ Server - Microsoft commissioned the development of an extension to its Exchange server that handles Fortezza signature and encryption using server-based Cipher™ Servers or T2CSS™ cards. The solution has undergone full functionality, resilience and performance testing and has proven to be both extremely fast and reliable. The Microsoft Exchange server is optimised to work with two new DMS clients and a suite of server applications. The result enables DMS messages under controlled circumstances, to exist at the Exchange server ‘in the clear’. This provides additional processing of the message (for profiling, archiving etc.), using COTS productivity tools such as Microsoft Windows.NET Framework and SQL.

Fortezza DMS Client - Microsoft commissioned the enhancement of the current DMS Microsoft Outlook client to work in two different modes depending on user selection. The client can work in a traditional mode with normal client-side Fortezza card and processing, or will skip Fortezza processing at the client and pass responsibility to the Microsoft Exchange server for encryption and signature. The later approach simplifies deployment of the DMS client and significantly reduces the time taken to send a message for those users.

Web-based Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) DMS Client - Boldon James enhanced the latest Microsoft OWA client to support the most commonly used DMS message security labels via its SAFEmail.net product. SAFEmail.net has an intuitive easy to use interface requiring no special training and is a zero client footprint. 

Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Services - Lockheed Martin developed a series of added-value applications based upon the DMS Microsoft Exchange server using Boldon James’ SAFEagent to access the messages. These include message profiling, local archive and retrospective search.

Further information

A white paper discussing CMS in greater detail in available in our reference library (Registration required). A PDF version of this information is also available in our reference library (No registration required). Alternatively please contact us with your questions.