WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded a four-and-a-half-year, $30.5 million contract to Harris Corp. for the development and rollout of a data repository. The project will create a centralized network performance monitoring system to help VA better manage its computer network systems and more quickly find and fix problems as they arise.

"The EMF FDR project will help ensure that the VA systems serving our veterans with the best possible healthcare are online and ready to go at all times," said Jim Traficant, president of Harris Healthcare.

The Harris team, along with subcontractors 4Points Technologies, 7 Delta, Inc., EM&I, iTKO, LSI, NIS Solutions, and Qbase LLC will provide engineering support services and ensure interoperability among existing applications.

According to Harris executives, the project will:

• Enable the VA to manage its IT enterprise more efficiently with accurate and timely reporting of status and performance of enterprise managed data repositories.
• Support VA’s goal to maintain quality assurance in service delivery to veterans.
• Create a VA information technology infrastructure library federated repository.

Under the Enterprise Management Foundation Federated Data Repository (EMF FDR) contract, Harris will develop and deploy a system that provides a unified, federated view of data repositories the VA has distributed throughout the United States. The VA currently monitors these regional managed data repositories using manual reports, which often leads to delays in addressing critical system problems.

The Harris system will provide the centralized management that is needed for a more accurate, automated reporting of the network's status, and will allow the VA to perform predictive analysis and modeling to identify areas of potential concern. Harris will use a set of commercial-off-the-shelf components to reduce the need for custom development and reduce maintenance costs.

"With a network as large and as diverse as the VA's, it is critically important that we have the ability to identify and address problems within our network in a timely, efficient manner wherever and whenever they arise," said Jeff Shyshka, deputy assistant secretary of Enterprise Operations and Field Development for the VA. "A federated repository combining all enterprise-wide system data will allow us to provide the kind of quality assurance our veterans deserve."