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The FBI on Thursday awarded a $305 million contract to Lockheed Martin to modernize the bureau's information technology infrastructure.

Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., has been tasked with managing the FBI's Sentinel project, an initiative to move the bureau away from its paper-based, case-focused system and build a comprehensive electronic network to share and store information. The FBI estimates the project will cost about $425 million to complete.

"Success is not an option," said Linda Gooden, Lockheed Martin's president of information technology at a press conference. "It is a mandate."

Under the contract, which is contingent on performance, Lockheed Martin will be awarded $305 million over six years to develop and deploy the Sentinel framework. FBI Chief Information Officer Zalmai Azmi said he expected the first phase of the project, which includes the construction of a "one-stop shop" Web portal providing access to the bureau's older systems, will be competed in the next year.

According to Azmi, the full Sentinel system will be deployed by 2009. The final years of the contract will be used for operational and maintenance purposes, he said. The finished product will replace existing segmented information applications and establish an IT network that is interoperable with other intelligence agencies.

Azmi said he is confident the project will be completed on time and on budget. But the bureau's past efforts to upgrade its IT capabilities have been riddled by financial and technological problems. FBI Director Robert Mueller last year scrapped the bureau's previous attempt, the Virtual Case File program, which cost about $170 million.

Gooden said her company is not fazed by the failure of programs that preceded Sentinel. According to Gooden, Lockheed Martin intends to build the system with very little custom developed software, and to keep an average of 200 employees working on the project throughout the 6-year contract.

FBI Inspector General Glenn Fine issued a 70-page audit report on Monday outlining problems the bureau encountered administering the Virtual Case File project. Fine said the FBI has made a number advances since it terminated the program, including stabilizing its corps of personnel charged with upgrading its IT capacity.

But Fine expressed concern about the FBI's hiring of CIA program manager Miodrag Lazarevich to head the Sentinel project. He said the success of the program would depend largely on whether Lazarevich, who was appointed to a two-year detail with an option for a third, remains at the post or if the FBI can transition smoothly to new leadership after his departure.

COMMENTS

• This feeds the classic line "If at first you don't succeed ... just throw more money at it, reward the large contributors to the party in power -- and the program will be guaranteed to be expensive, although success won't be!" As a member of a large DoD agency, I have seen numerous "new and improved technological software" introduced, although training generally does not follow, or is slipshod at best, and my ability to do my job has been impacted to the detriment of the taxpayer. The new and improved DTS (Defense Travel System) that has just recently been implemented is another boondoggle that will cost the taxpayer millions in wasted dollars, invoke frustration and headaches to the government traveler, and cause more than one federal employee to pass on making a necessary trip or TDY because they do not want to deal with this new improved method of scheduling the trip, or receiving recompense for making the trip. In most cases, new software programs and procedures are "force fed" onto those responsible for accomplishing the mission, without first ensuring that all the bugs have been worked out so that what was designed to be an improvement often turns out to be a bust! JD Posted March 22, 2006 11:13 AM
• It's stories like this that keep taking more wind out of the sails of ICE and other agencies, sails that are already flapping freely with no force to drive them. Let's see, $305 million for new infrastructure upgrades ... from where and why does FBI get all this bank to throw around and we can't even get a T-1 or broadband in an investigations office? We're still connecting through "one ringee-dingee, two ringee-dingees" to get anything done, which is excruciatingly painful and amounts to time lost and patience alarmingly frayed. No sense in addressing the issue; been there, done it and didn't get so much as a kiss! GovExec.com reader Posted March 17, 2006 3:22 PM