Surreal Notions

A team of five low-ranking airmen were assigned the daunting task of finding a replacement for the 40+ year old Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS).  Loving a challenge, I couldn’t resist joining the team.  The current system’s maintenance costs are spiraling out of control as parts become non-existent and service becomes more difficult.  We quickly decided the best route would be a modern approach to computing that takes advantage of common, inexpensive, disposable parts.

We began by interviewing a few key personnel from the SACCS development and maintenance teams.  There are very few people that still know how to work on systems this old, so our choices were limited.  We also dug into the SACCS documentation, but quickly found that 30 years of spaghetti code and shifting management priorities made the documentation convoluted and, frequently, contradictory.  To make things more interesting, the NSA security definitions had substantially changed in recent years.  After a few weeks of research and heated discussions, we had a good idea of what the system needed to meet user and security requirements.

We proceeded by researching the handful of vendors in the world that might be able to provide a baseline secure system, which uses modern technology (i.e., standard Intel based server/client architecture).  We invited the two most likely vendors to visit our operation and discuss their thoughts on the challenges and options available.

Ultimately, I compiled all of the information the team had gathered into an executive summary.  We proposed a phased plan of implementation that would cost $3M – $7M and take 2-4 years.  The wide range accounted for possible development challenges related to integrating communication across older segments of the network.  Of course, the cost is almost trivial compared to the $400M – $650M in savings created by dramatically reducing maintenance, overhead, training costs, and footprint.  I was informed the Chiefs of Staff reviewed the plan in late 2005.