MCLB-ALBANY — The thousands of people who work at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany rely on communications and technology infrastructure to work correctly. One department is responsible for assuring that reliability and that technology connections are made safely, a responsibility that includes everyone within the base perimeter, even Marine Corps Logistics Command.
The Communication and Information Systems Division at the base supports the installation’s secure and non-secure network. Division personnel conduct cybersecurity services and ensure the telephone and handheld radios at MCLB-Albany are working as they should.
The non-secure and secure networks define the base’s two levels of security. The non-secure level is the regular, day-to-day activity, while the secure level is the classified information. Telecommunications has both inside and outside plants, with the inside plants including the servers and the outside plant consisting of the fiber and copper cabling.
Division personnel manage up to 5,000 units in its systems, a number that changes depending on personnel levels. There are 3,000 network users on the installation.
For those times when one of these thousands has difficulty, there is a service support branch in the division.
“This is the single point of entry where someone comes in and gets a trouble ticket,” Lori Farr, the division’s director, said.
The division has a field services branch, whose technicians make repairs and troubleshoot. The division, which also helps to support the base’s Sharepoint and intranet platforms, also has an organizational integration branch that consists of administrative, budget, personnel, information technology procurement and training.
Farr has a deputy director to help her manage the day-to-day operations.
The director said a typical day is often a “revolving door” that includes communications with regional officials, a “stand-up” meeting detailing the day ahead and putting out fires based on the trouble tickets CISD receives. Meetings with high-level officials at MCLB and management of tasks coming from regional offices — including Marine Corps Installations East — are also regular tasks.
Where the CISD’s impact is often felt, beyond the typical software problem or email outage, is during incidents such as the Jan. 22 tornado that directly struck the base — which ripped out a large portion of the infrastructure in one area of the installation.
“When the tornado hit, we knew what to do,” Farr said.
Generally during such a situation, CISD gets a notification and an Emergency Operations Center is activated. Needed personnel respond. Once an evaluation has taken place, proper individuals are brought in to help address the situation.
After the tornado hit, no fiber, no cable, no communications and no power were available. Within a few days, CISD was able to get the base up and running again. The procedure of setting up priorities was important, starting with the most critical areas first.
Farr said Georgia Power was among the entities most valuable in that process, as was the base’s regional counterparts.
“The amount of work and coordination is phenomenal,” she said.
Eighteen thousand feet of temporary fiber had to be set up in order for LOGCOM’s distribution area to function, and wireless towers were also set up to link the affected area to a working system.
“(The towers) were a novel approach that had never been done,” Farr said.
The base computer system now must be updated to Windows 10, another big task for CISD. Something like that has to include efforts on the part of the division to ensure the upgrade does not make the installation more vulnerable.
There is also the risk of it creating chaos, which goes back to the fires that have to be put out.
“A new update may break everybody,” Farr said. “We have to identify if it is localized or if it is across the whole installation.”
Some “fires” have to take priority, such as downed phone lines interfering with the base’s public safety services, or if someone like Col. James Carroll, commanding officer at MCLB, or Maj. Gen. Craig Crenshaw, the commanding general of LOGCOM, are having problems with their systems.
“Most updates are vetted, but everyone’s environment is a little different,” Farr said. “There are so many moving parts, it keeps it interesting. Technology always changes.”
One of the most challenging aspects of the division is ensuring time and money for the training it takes to keep up to speed, and dealing with the individual needs of the employees they support. Farr said the CISD group is closely-knit, which makes the process easier.
“Our group is like a family; it works well together,” she said. “They never say they can’t.”
Every employee working aboard MCLB, depending on their job, has specific and critical requirements for performing their duties — and CISD has the responsibility of juggling those needs in order to keep people happy.
Farr has been in the field since 1982, when she was 19 years old. Her father worked in IT while in the Marines, so she was exposed to that field at an early age. She said she remembers when the main piece of technology was a 24-hour mainframe.
“It is a neat thing to see the evolution,” she said.
Farr became the deputy director in 2009 and was promoted to her current position in 2012. She said one of the biggest changes she has seen was bringing the network back to MCLB, which had been outsourced to Hewlett-Packard from 2005 until 2010.
In 2014, the base gained full ownership of the network again.
“It is harder because we own it all, but more satisfying because we own it all,” Farr said.
In the mainframe days, no Internet access was available. Now, technology can be accessed at a person’s fingertips through their cell phones, and there is a “cloud” along with linkage capabilities between mobile devices.
The next thing MCLB may see is more integration into wireless technology, which Farr said is in the planning stages.
The roles in CISD require a life-long learning process, and the potential development into wireless may mean meeting the base’s mission more effectively.
“We are looking at different ways of maintaining the infrastructure in the future,” Farr said.
While these advances are sought, the security piece remains front of mind, as does the understanding that the job CISD performs is critical to making sure MCLB’s role of supporting the warfighter is met effectively.
“We make sure we don’t do technology for technology’s sake, but to support the (MCLB) mission,” the CISD director said. “If it doesn’t work, we don’t implement it.
“Technology is ingrained in everything we do today. Without effective technology, the mission is a lot harder.”
©2017 The Albany Herald, Ga. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
