NDF Tracker97 Project

Contacts:
FGM Inc
131 Elden St, Suite 204
Herndon, VA 20701
U.S.A.

NDF Tracker97 Project
2201 C St, NW, RM 4831
Washington, DC 20001
U.S.A. 

Tools Used:
Inprise's Visibroker™, CORBA®, IIOP™, Netscape™, Java™

Description:
Java, CORBA, and WebObjects are enabling software engineering firm FGM Inc. to create an international application called Tracker97 for the U.S. State Department Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund (NDF). Tracker97 will permit the tracking of sensitive items, such as encryption software and nuclear materials, and allow government agencies to share information about these items with other domestic agencies and possibly their counterparts in other countries.

Tracker97 client-side Java applications communicate via IIOP through Inprise's ORB to Apple Computer's Enterprise Objects Framework on the application server. This approach continues to save resources after deployment, since only a current Netscape browser must be maintained on the client. The advantages of this new application paradigm include flexibility, responsiveness to change, interoperability, ease of administration, and reduced platform costs.

Tracker97 is written entirely in Java, is platform-independent, and uses a multi-tier approach. The first tier is a Java-enabled browser, for example, Netscape's Communicator, on the client. The second tier uses the Enterprise Object Framework (EOF) application to integrate a variety of database solutions into an object oriented environment. Once integrated, CORBA is used as an interface between Java and EOF. The third tier provides countries the option to use relational, object, or legacy database systems which may be local to a host country or located anywhere else in the world.

Tracker97 spans 7 countries including Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Russia. Deployment is scheduled to expand into an additional 9 countries with the total number of expected users to be more than 1000.

The main benefits of Tracker97 are:

• Regional export control cooperation
• Cross-platform capability
• Scalability
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Interoperability between governments
• Prevention of destabilizing transfers of advanced conventional weapons and dual-use technology

With the first version of Tracker97 out in August 1997, development and deployment continues into 1999. For more information on Tracker97, visit FGM at www.fgm.com