Merlin International Case Studies
U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Intelligence Agency: Virtualization
Case Study: Virtualization
Problem: The U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) looked to add on to its existing blade-server environment to support new applications.
Solution: Merlin International® designed the architecture and configured individual blades to run applications in a virtual environment.
Results: A virtual environment has helped DIA servers run more effectively while reducing management costs.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: Cyber Security
Case Study: Cyber Security
Problem: In 2006 and 2007, laptops were lost containing data on more than 27 million veterans. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) received substantial media coverage and judicial attention on these data breaches.
Solution: Merlin International® provided a phased deployment, identifying more than 30,000 critical-risk assets and 200,000 total assets in one of the nation’s most complex environments.
Results: For a department once synonymous with data breaches, no VA laptop breaches were reported in 2008 or 2009.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Business Process Management
Case Study: Business Process Management
Problem: The contact center at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was servicing a record volume of potential immigrants at a high cost per contact. At the same time, the self-service USCIS Web portal reached its capacity.
Solution: Merlin International® designed and built a new process-oriented USCIS portal that is user friendly and aligned with the immigration process to include all of the required steps and forms. Merlin also engineered a higher capacity, fault-tolerant platform for the portal.
Results: The new portal became the reference standard for the U.S. immigration process. USCIS contact center calls, and thus costs, dramatically decreased due to user effectiveness with the portal.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration: Virtualization
Case Study: Virtualization
Problem: After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) faced a considerably changed mission. The TSA needed the ability to rapidly evaluate new and disruptive technologies for applicability to its post-9/11 technology requirements.
Solution: Merlin International® built out an “on-demand” prototyping lab that delivered virtual resources – servers, storage and network – to technology evaluators.
Results: Employing a shared-resource model, the TSA dramatically reduced the overhead, lead-time and expenses of evaluating new technologies that come with dedicated platforms.
U.S. Department of Defense’s U.S. Transportation Command: Service Oriented Architecture
Case Study: Service Oriented Architecture
Problem: The U.S. Department of Defense’s U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) needed to share its information-technology logistics data and capabilities with other DoD entities in a net-centric environment, but it did not have the required service oriented architecture (SOA).
Solution: Merlin International® delivered a complete SOA solution, including service life cycle processes, governance, policy management, registry/repository with ontology, operations, administration and management, and security services.
Results: By having a complete SOA infrastructure, USTRANSCOM is now able to share logistics data and capabilities in a net-centric environment.