MAXWELL AFB-GUNTER ANNEX, Ala. -- July and August 2024 brought two significant successes for the Civil Engineering Next Generation Information Technology (CE NexGen IT) program.
The first win was the successful migration of 38 production and 79 non-production servers from the IBM RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system version 7.9 to version 8.9, as the RHEL 7.x product line had reached the end of its supported life.
Development of this major upgrade package completed in late May 2024 and was approved by the Authorizing Official’s Designated Representative in early June 2024.
The team, working closely with Defense Information Systems Agency support engineers, upgraded the servers in small, manageable groups which was an innovative approach to allow the system to remain fully functional through a majority of the major upgrade.
Completing the final migration on July 27, 2024, the system was offline for only four hours across all the groups, and with no issues reported since completion. This accomplishment postured CE NexGen IT for sustainability, while clearing several RHEL 7 related security vulnerabilities, reducing technical debt and further boosting our systems’ cyber resiliency in support of great power competition.
The second big success was achieved on Aug. 2, 2024, when the Air Force Civil Engineering Center (AFCEC) Functional Sponsor signed an Acquisition Decision Memorandum approving CE NexGen IT’s progression into the Business Capability Acquisition Cycle (BCAC) Capability Support Phase. This significant acquisition milestone formally closed the BCAC Acquisition, Test, and Deployment Phase of the program’s life cycle.
CE NexGen IT is in use at 187 U.S. Air Force, Space Force, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard locations, supporting more than 2,000 unique sites and over 42,000 users. By crossing into Capability Support, the System and Functional Owners can now look ahead to ‘what’s next’.
As the enterprise system enabling all aspects of the Air and Space Force’s civil engineering process, CE NexGen IT places a firm focus on supporting environmental sustainability, while building in novel operational efficiencies.
These efficiencies have proven invaluable in controlling costs and providing leaders with the time-relevant decision-quality data needed to execute their mission despite budget limitations.