DLA supply center keeps track of office software
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In the second year of its Defense Logistics Agency electronic software distribution contract, Beyond.com Corp. has gotten a thumbs-up from supervisory computer specialist Michael Ryan at the Defense Supply Center in Richmond, Va. Ryan praised the Sunnyvale, Calif., online software reseller, formerly known as Software.net, for improving its Cache Server 2.0 configuration tool. "It's a good tool for upgrades," he said, and users no longer have to run Microsoft
In the second year of its Defense Logistics Agency electronic software
distribution contract, Beyond.com Corp. has gotten a thumbs-up from supervisory computer
specialist Michael Ryan at the Defense Supply Center in Richmond, Va.
Ryan praised the Sunnyvale, Calif., online software reseller, formerly known as
Software.net, for improving its Cache Server 2.0 configuration tool. Its a
good tool for upgrades, he said, and users no longer have to run Microsoft Windows
NT 4.0 to use it.
The 2,200-employee Richmond center, one of three DLA inventory control points, is the
lead center for aviation. It stocks 700,000 repair parts and supply items.
As part of DLAs effort to streamline interactions with its Defense Department
customers and commercial suppliers, the Richmond center is now performing all its software
upgrades centrally. DLA annually audits how many software licenses the center uses, Ryan
said.
The supply center has downloaded at least eight Microsoft Corp. software products for
widespread use via Beyond.coms electronic distribution contract.
Employees use the Microsoft Office 97 Professional edition running under Windows 95 OSR
1 and 2, Ryan said.
Although they eventually will move to Windows NT Workstation 4.0, employees prefer
Win95 because of its compatibility with users older Windows applications, he said.
For messaging, the center uses Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 and Outlook 97 clients.
Officials have decided to hold off upgrading to Outlook 98, Ryan said.
The center inventories its PC LANs with Microsoft Systems Management Server and runs
the Microsoft SQL Server database management system. Some employees have Microsoft Project
98, and software developers on the staff use Microsoft Visual Basic tools, Ryan
said.