Apriva to Upgrade Secure Gateway for Secure PDAs
Jul 29, 2009 07:41 EDT
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Apriva ISS in Scottsdale, AZ received a $17 million firm-fixed-price contract to build an updated gateway to enable U.S. military personnel to use their secure smartphones while on the move.
Under the contract, Apriva will operate and maintain the multi-carrier entry point (MCEP 1) gateway for the Defense Information Systems Agency’s secure mobile environment portable electronic device (SME-PED) network, and buildout, operate and maintain an upgraded gateway (MCEP 2).
The SME-PED is a military-specific device, and MCEP is its accompanying network equipment. It does not support all smart PDAs, and works in a specific way…
Through the use of the SME-PED, U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) personnel are able to securely access classified information systems while away from the office. The SME-PED secure smartphone enables military personnel to use Top Secret voice, Apriva Sensa secure e-mail, web browsing and document viewing while on the move.
The Apriva MCEP is based on its commercial Multi Protocol Gateway infrastructure, which intelligently routes traffic among multiple domains and enclaves without ever storing or queuing messages the way a traditional network operation center does, and never co-mingles authorized user’s traffic with traffic outside of the enterprise’s control.
This infrastructure supports other secure Windows Mobile devices, but it does not support competitor RIM’s popular Blackberries.
The contract’s period of performance of this contract is for a 1-year base period and 4 one-year option periods. MCEP 1 performance will be at a privately-run data center, while MCEP 2 performance will be at a DISA Defense Enterprise Computing Center. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO) at Scott AFB, IL manages the contract (HC1013-09-C-2002).
- DID thanks Apriva President Jeff Ford and VP Government solutions Richard Spinella for their assistance in correcting this article.
