23rd CS earns invaluable job knowledge

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman S.I. Fielder
  • 23rd Wing Public Affairs
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  The 23rd CS Network Control Center recently completed the migration of the secret internet protocol router network.

They plan to complete migration of the non-secure internet protocol router network by the end of December.

"We are currently doing the preparation work on the unsecured side, known as NIPRNET," said 2nd Lt. Michael Carlson, NCC crew commander. "We have done similar things in the past, but this situation is unique in that it provides a great training opportunity."

To make sure the Airmen know exactly what to do, coordination has been on-going with ACC.

"The coordination was necessary so our Airmen could assist ACC during the entire migration process," he said.

Although the SIPRNET migration went smoothly, Lieutenant Carlson said the shop has never completed a migration as complex as this one, so complications could arise.

"During our day-to-day operations, the systems are already up and running," he said. "Although the migration should be transparent to the base and no problems should arise, from a technical standpoint this is a very complex process.

"Any process that could potentially cause downtime for the base is being performed during the weekend," said Lieutenant Carlson. "We are doing everything in our power to mitigate any impact to the base user; however, we ask for patience if any problems arise."

Lieutenant Carlson said the migration's complexity could be compared to using a program like Microsoft Word. People understand how to do the basics on the program, but they may not understand all the details that actually make the program work.

"In order to make the connections to ACC work, we have to understand how everything is interrelated," he said. "In our day-to-day operations, we may have one person who is an expert on one particular system and knows a little bit about the other systems.

"Now, everyone has to develop a good understanding of how everything works together in order for the migration to go smoothly and have a minimal impact to the base users," said Lieutenant Carlson.

The main training benefit applies to how the NCC Airmen will deal with network problems after the migration's complete.

"Since we're here when everything is built, it will help us troubleshoot potential problems down the road," said Staff Sgt. Christopher Doss, 23rd CS network administrator. "We get the opportunity to make the system more user-friendly for us and more customer-friendly for the base."

The base will see several changes on how business is conducted once all the migrations are completed.

During this migration, the NCC Airmen are also migrating to the Integrated Network Operations and Security Center, which is an Air Force-wide initiative. I-NOSC will centralize network control at two hubs, located at Langley Air Force Base, Va., and Peterson AFB, Colo., for all ACC bases.

"Before we had control over everything, and we were able to make any needed changes here," said Lieutenant Carlson. "Once the migrations are complete, that control will lie in the hands of Langley (AFB)."

The crew commander said problems, such as getting a particular Web site unblocked, that may have taken minutes in the past to solve, could now take between 24 and 72 hours. The Client Support Administrators, who are the computer technicians within the squadrons, will also lose many of their privileges.

"They'll still be able to debug some basic problems, but they will also spend more time calling us because they no longer have the same rights," said Lieutenant Carlson. "A benefit of I-NOSC, however, is that we'll have multiple eyes monitoring our systems.

"They also have more experts and access to more resources at ACC, so they can respond quickly to any outages we have," he said. "Since they are dealing with more bases, the potential to have already dealt with a similar problem is greater."

The network migration not only gives Moody the availability of ACC's expertise, but also allows NCC Airmen here to become more knowledgeable.

"We don't normally get the opportunity to move so many accounts, people and all their resources to another base because a lot of locations don't change this dramatically," said Staff Sgt. Zach Whisenant, 23rd CS network administrator. "Once we know how to complete the migration, we are not only more qualified for our job here but also at other bases."