Northrop Grumman is a leading defense organization specializing in providing innovative solutions to industries including aerospace and defense, space, government, state and local as well as commercial customers. Northrop Grumman focuses it’s business into four key areas.
- Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems is a premier developer, integrator, producer and supporter of manned and unmanned aircraft, spacecraft, high-energy laser systems and microelectronics critical to maintaining the nation’s security.
- Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems is a leading developer, manufacturer, integrator and supporter of a variety of advanced electronic and maritime systems for U.S. and international customers for national security and non-defense applications.
- Northrop Grumman Information Systems is a leading global provider of advanced solutions that deliver timely, enabling information to where it is needed most for our military, intelligence, civilian, state and local, and commercial customers.
- Northrop Grumman Technical Services creates innovative, cost-effective logistics solutions. From modernization and sustainment, supply chain management, training and simulation, and automated test equipment, we offer a full-spectrum of support.
Challenge
Northrop Grumman asked Ten Six to assist with a significant migration of major programs from Deltek Cobra 4.7 to 5.1. This included large programs ($1BN plus), one of which had been running since 1998 and was originally using Cobra 4.1 when it started. One of the key business drivers for this effort was that Microsoft was going to drop support for Microsoft XP in April 2014. The knock on effect of this meant that their current version Deltek Cobra (version 4.7) would not be supported by Deltek on Windows 7. The decision was made to upgrade Deltek Cobra and their program data from version 4.7 to 5.1 and run this on Microsoft Windows 7.
Ten Six Approach
The Ten Six approach started with an initial review of Northrop Grumman’s people, processes and technology. As Northrop Grumman were existing users of Deltek Cobra and had a compliant Earned Value Management System, most of the Ten Six approach focused on the technical aspects of the migration together with end user training and support. Following the initial review, we executed a structured migration plan which included:
- Reviewing the development installation N-Tier Architecture, Application Server, Oracle 11g, Client install.
- Assessing current data for quality, formatting and integrity.
- Documenting the existing roles and the capabilities used in Cobra 4.7.
- Setup and review of Cobra 5.1 Security Roles/Training.
- Migrating these privileges to the Deltek EPM Security Administrator to provide equivalent control levels in Cobra 5.1.
- Migrating and validating program data.
- Setup integration with Primavera P6 & Deltek wInsight.
- Migrating custom reports and providing updated reporting templates.
- Setup Batch file processing addressing some show stopping issues that were previously unresolved.
- Setup a more robust error reporting and logging process.
- Optimizing system environment.
- Providing training materials and instruction for Cobra administrators for maintaining and modifying the EPM Security Administrator tool.
- Providing end user training highlighting functional, interface differences and introducing new capabilities in 5.1.
We also addressed and resolved outstanding technical issues and ad-hoc end user requests. Some of these were unresolved, show-stopping issues in the development environment for Deltek Cobra 5.1 that Northrop Grumman had set up.
Results
Ten Six is pleased to announce that the migration went flawlessly with data integrity protected, integration with Primavera P6 and wInsight performing without error and staff trained in the new version of Deltek Cobra and associated processes. The Program Manager at Northrop Grumman reported that he was impressed with the Ten Six team and that more was accomplished in the planned time frame than he thought was possible.