Our Work: Project Summaries

Client: U.S. DHS, Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
Teaming Partner: SAIC
Technologies/Services: Database administration, software development, systems integration and management

Summary/Results:
Mission Scheduling and Notification System (MSNS)
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) is responsible for detecting, deterring and defeating hostile acts targeting U.S. air carriers and airports. In support of this effort, FAMS operates the Mission Scheduling and Notification System (MSNS). Planners use the MSNS to manage the allocation of flight duty, training, and time-off for Air Marshals. It is a compute intensive application that optimizes Air Marshals' flight coverage across the entire Online Airline Guide (OAG), based on law enforcement intelligence and planner experience.

TFC provides mission-critical integration and system management experience in support of MSNS whose functionality has dramatically grown in recent years. The core of the new MSNS consists of highly available Oracle database servers, ATG Dynamo application servers, and load balanced farms of scheduling servers. The TFC system integration team assisted in building this complex system from “cold metal”. The infrastructure includes 4 clusters of SUN V880, 6 farms of SUN V240s, an extensive fiber channel fabric made from Brocade 3900s, and 3.6TB of SAN storage. TFC implements a broad array of Veritas products in this SUN environment, including Veritas OpForce, Veritas Volume Replicator, Veritas Cluster Server, Veritas Netbackup, and Veritas Volume Manager.

One key feature of the expansion is the construction of a completely redundant hot site. The hot site synchronizes continuously with the active site, so that in the wake of environmental catastrophe or terrorist threat, the FAMS operational infrastructure will be back online in a matter of minutes.

TFC also supports FAMS in the capacity of Data Warehouse Developers. In this capacity, the TFC team is responsible for designing, developing, testing, implementing, and supporting (including report generation) a Data Warehouse application within an Oracle environment. This warehouse consists of approx 3 Terabytes of data that is collected from diverse systems. The TFC team provides requirements gathering, documentation, code design, development and testing. In this critical environment our team is constantly working closely with business staff to analyze output and verify results. The databases are accessed and queried through the use of Oracle PL/SQL and Oracle Stored Procedures with Crystal Reports and MicroStrategy software used for data reporting. TFC team members also provide expertise in the areas of data modeling, multi-dimensional analysis and data mining.

Client: Verizon
Technologies/Services: Systems Engineering, Systems Administration, Metakey access tool support

Summary/Results:
TFC is providing its own exceptional telecommunications capabilities to one the world leaders in telecommunications – Verizon. TFC is providing Verizon with system engineering, system administration, and application support and production release activity to Verizon's Distributed Production Operations group. This support includes providing comprehensive monitoring, problem resolution and engineering support on Unix, NT and Windows 2000 platforms. Moreover, TFC supports a Metakey access tool as part of this project.

TFC's “Wholesale Legacy Integration” (WLI) group is leading this effort on behalf of Verizon. WLI's mission is to provide seamless interaction between existing Legacy applications and Wholesale front-end applications. WLI provides Verizon with round-the-clock support with documented call-out processes and procedures. Throughout the project, TFC's goal is to address in a timely fashion all Wholesale connectivity issues via IREP/Metakey. We also support all Wholesale production release activity while acting as a critical knowledge resource for application architecture and design for new and existing projects that require back-end access. Currently Wholesale Legacy Integration supports Verizon's Wholesale Trouble Administration system and the Wisdom PreOrder applications. The support provided is in terms of middleware or “screen scraping” functions. Wholesale Trouble Administration & Wisdom PreOrder requires Verizon Enterprise Middleware Architecture in order to achieve back-end connectivity.

Client: Verizon
Technologies/Services: Software engineering; Analysis, Design and Development; Java programming

Summary/Results:
TFC has also provided exceptional telecommunications and IT design and development services for Verizon for its Marketing System for Long Distance (MSLD) Data Warehouse. TFC's major responsibilities include Technical Project Leadership, Database Modeling and Design, User-interface Design, and Software.

Serving as a Software Engineer, TFC performs Analysis, Design, Development and Trouble-Shooting for the ongoing deployment of the Verizon Long Distance Marketing System. We are involved in the design and development of the Customer Retention Marketing Engine's external channel vendor interface for Verizon Long Distance. This effort required TFC to design the file layout that included 18 pre-defined records. We also provided software design and development that allows the user to create on demand a list of records that build a Customer Retention Marketing output file.

TFC's work has been instrumental in Verizon's successful launch of the Verizon Long Distance Marketing effort in New York and Massachusetts. This success was attributed to our involvement in extensive redesign and development of the Acquisition Marketing software which enabled the daily processing and formatting of over 1.2 million prospect records. This system was designated “Best in Class” as a Campaign Engine by an outside auditor and received a Verizon Excellence Award.

Additionally, TFC re-designed the List Management sub-system that provides Registration, Validation, Prospect identification. This subsystem provides source information and integrity for each prospect in the Marketing Data Warehouse. The sub-system is written using JBuilder 3 Java for the front-end user interface, Inprise CORBA, and ANSI C++ running on AIX4.2 for the back-end applications.

Client:U.S. DHS/FAMS
Teaming Partner: SAIC
Technologies/Services: Database administration; analysis, design and development; System upgrade/refresh

Summary/Results:
Partnering with world technology leader SAIC, TFC supports the Federal Air Marshal Service headquarters by providing mission-critical database administration tasks. TFC performs analysis, design, development and trouble-shooting for the ongoing deployment of an important FMS production system.

Our responsibilities include managing backup and recovery, performance tuning, and assistance in developing PL/SQL and UNIX scripts used for applications and systems maintenance tasks. TFC also supports the upgrade of all database servers to Oracle 9i from Oracle 8i. This effort involves the creation of installation and database upgrade documentation, as well as testing database upgrades on stand-alone and clustered servers. Other responsibilities include developing new data structures and changing existing databases; installing and upgrading ORACLE and associated application tools; planning, installing and testing database patches.

TFC administers the FAMS databases by establishing and executing our change management procedures. We develop processes and procedural documentation, and review business system functions and systems designs to ensure efficient database access. TFC also administers database security access and monitors database performance while performing necessary maintenance. We create and maintain batch scripts which call jobs that run against the production database; planning for backup and recovery of database information; cleanup of unnecessary/obsolete databases, and day-to-day problem resolution including database assistance for software engineers.

Client: U.S. DHS/Federal Air Marshal Service (Washington Field Office)
Teaming Partner: SAIC
Technologies/Services: Hardware, software and network administration; Help Desk support

Summary/Results:
In partnership with SAIC, TFC supports the Washington Field Office (WFO) of the Federal Air Marshal Service with a quick, efficient, and knowledgeable, technical support solution. TFC maintains an on-site IT support office that allows for immediate response to a variety of customer technical needs. At the WFO, the TFC desktop support team provides hardware, software and network administrative functions supporting over 500+ Federal Air Marshals, support staff, and management. Our team is responsible for the complete maintenance of the FAMS computer equipment as well as on-site network administrative functions. Moreover, TFC implements a streamlined system for tracking and deploying desktop and laptop computers. Additionally, TFC team members at the WFO work with SAIC staff in New Jersey at another FAMS location to provide support for all facets of their client-server environment for thousands of FAMS users located there.

Our team has redesigned the Washington field office's technology support department. We have created a responsive, efficient and flexible structure that responds to the Marshals demand for maximum network and equipment uptime. This redeveloped structure offers a newly designed inventory system (SSR) Scan barcode/Sign-out/ Return to stock system to ensure that the necessary computers are always on hand.

Time and again, FAMS has recognized TFC as superior providers in the areas of customer service, technical knowledge and problem resolution.