Case Study : Envoke Commercialization
ASYNCHRONY SOLUTIONS CHOSEN AS COMMERCIALIZATION PARTNER TO TRANSFORM DISA TECHNOLOGY INTO COTS PRODUCT
Client Challenge The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is a combat-support agency responsible for planning, engineering, acquiring, fielding and supporting global net-centric solutions.
DISA funded the Gateway to Virtual Collaboration (GVC) project, a program to research technology that would support interoperability between otherwise proprietary collaboration systems.
GVC’s vision of facilitating interoperability proved promising. DISA determined that taking the project beyond its initial research phase would be best accomplished by partnering with a commercial entity to create, distribute and maintain a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) product.
Asynchrony ... developed middle-tier components that provide the functionality required to contractually bind a customer to an insurance policy online.The existing system used for insurance policy administration lacked the functionality required to support policy creation through the World Wide Web.
Asynchrony Solutions ApproachDISA engaged Asynchrony Solutions to design, develop, implement, segment, maintain and upgrade GVC as a COTS product and provide it to DISA’s Advanced Information Technology Services-Joint Program Office (AITS-JPO) and its partners in the Department of Defense (DoD).
Working closely with DISA, Asynchrony created a new product (Envoke) to further DISA’s net-centric vision. Asynchrony extended GVC’s fuctionality so that Envoke would provide global awareness of people, virtual spaces and virtual conferences for all collaboration tools approved to operate on DoD networks, as well as secure instant messaging.
Results Envoke was integrated into the Defense Collaboration Tool Suite (DCTS), an important interim interoperability solution that has been deployed to all combatant commanders. DCTS is a framework that supports collaboration, knowledge management and can support the implementation of collaborative communities of interest.
Today, Envoke offers a robust, enterprise-oriented feature set -- including an intuitive user interface, secure-file transfer and bridging capabilities to collaborative tools like CUSeeMe, Lotus SameTime and Microsoft NetMeeting -- that elevates it above consumer-grade IM solutions. Envoke customers include the armed forces and other service organizations, including the United States Department of Justice, FORSCOM and United States Navy.