Higher-tech NSA workstations
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DOD, intell users will be able to access data requiring different security clearance levels from a single physical machine.
The National Security Agency has hired VMware and General Dynamics C4 Systems to develop high-assurance platform (HAP) workstations for the agency.
Using VMware virtualization software, users in the Defense Department, the intelligence community and other government agencies can access information requiring different security clearance levels from a single physical machine, said Aileen Black, vice president of federal sales at VMware.
Currently, members of the armed forces and intelligence analysts with multiple security clearances must use multiple, separate physical workstations to access information according to clearance level, Black said. This creates an expensive and logistically cumbersome information technology environment, she added.
Through the joint HAP projects, government agencies would be able to purchase secure workstation solutions developed by General Dynamics C4 Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics, with integrated VMware software that provides secure access to multiple clearance levels.
The HAP workstations could also reduce the size, weight and power requirements for mobile field equipment used by tactical armed forces units, allowing them to share secured information across communities of interest, VMware officials said.
The Special Operations Command is partnering with NSA to adopt an early release of the HAP workstation for operational testing.
'The HAP program is interested in developing the next generation of standards and technologies that will be the foundation of secure platforms that allow access to different classified domains and the ability to securely share data between different classified enclaves,' Prescott Winter, former director of the NSA Commercial Solutions Center and now the agency's chief technology officer, said in a statement.
VMware's partnership with NSA builds on a joint development initiative that dates to 2000. The project resulted in a solution called NetTop, a predecessor to the HAP workstation based on VMware workstation software that allows simultaneous access to top-secret and secret information on the same platform
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