The Global Military IT, Data and Computing Market 2012-2022 Major Programs: Market Profile

Tuesday 19 February 2013, Amsterdam

The Defense Information Infrastructure (DII) program aims to replace hundreds of existing individual computer systems in the UK military with a single new system. The design, installation, and running of this program is led by the ATLAS consortium. The goal of this program is to have 150,000 terminals supporting 300,000 users at more than 2,000 sites, with additional capability on deployed operations and Royal Navy ships. The program is designed in a manner that is expected to be able to handle material classified as Restricted, Secret, and Top Secret. The implementation of this program suffered major delays due to the program’s over-optimistic assumptions about the condition of the buildings into which equipment would be fitted, and the consequent selection of an inappropriate and unresponsive methodology for installing terminals. 62,800 terminals should have been installed by the end of July 2007 yet only 45,600 were in place at the end of September 2008.

The Defense Information Infrastructure (DII) program is a 10 year contract with the ATLAS consortium, led by EDS. The program was started in March 2005 and is one of the largest IT programs ever undertaken in the United Kingdom.




It is currently estimated that the parts of DII already on contract will cost £4.9 billion by 2015, plus a further £1.2 billion for the sub-programs on which DII depends. If the UK MoD goes ahead with all of the work originally planned, the total cost of the program can be expected to stand at £7.1 billion. A key goal of the DII system is to enhance the MoD’s data security by making all data safer through measures such as encryption, and by providing more stringent protection for highly classified material.