IBM and Raytheon Deliver Technology Solution for DDG 1000 Next Generation Navy Destroyers

IBM and Raytheon Deliver Technology Solution for DDG 1000 Next Generation Navy Destroyers
Navy to Take Advantage of One of the Military Branch's Largest IBM Technology Engagements for New Zumwalt Class Destroyer Program

WASHINGTON, DC — February 07, 2007 — IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Raytheon announced today the Navy will begin deploying one of its most extensive uses of IBM technology to accelerate the development of weapon systems and help reduce the number of crew members needed to sail the next generation of Navy Destroyers.

Addressing the Navy's need for a cost effective open architecture computing infrastructure, IBM and Raytheon are significantly reducing the complexity of the ship's computing environment and maintenance costs as compared to other ship classes, while providing the processing capabilities to address current and future threats. In addition, IBM and Raytheon are deploying the most advanced computing environment and standards-based infrastructure software so the systems can perform at never before seen processing rates with high levels of reliability.

Under the contract, IBM will provide BladeCenter servers and WebSphere software technology running on custom Real-Time Linux. This is critical to enabling the Navy to leverage a single computing environment for all applications that range from command-and-control, navigation, targeting, weapons control, and radar systems.

This represents the military's first use of an IBM open standards-based platform and will aid the Navy, cutting the cost of developing and maintaining traditionally expensive real-time applications so it can speed development of mission critical combatant systems.

The IBM technology is the latest enhancement to the Navy's Total Ship Computing Environment Infrastructure (TSCEI), an open architecture platform for software application development for the DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer Program. The environment is composed of an integrated suite of standardized hardware, operating system, middleware and infrastructure services and forms the backbone of the enterprise-network computing system on which all DDG 1000 application software programs run.

"By taking advantage of open technologies the U.S. Navy and industry are better able to create infrastructure and mission critical solutions at lower cost and risk," said David McQueeney, IBM Strategy vice president and chief technology officer, US Federal. "The TSCEI project has been an outstanding example of collaboration between IBM, Raytheon, the open source community and the U.S. Navy to deliver state-of-the-art solutions in support of our national defense."

The IBM Java Technology Center and Linux Technology Center, Red Hat and the open source Linux community collaborated with Raytheon to create a new real-time Java and real-time Linux environment in support of the Navy's TSCEI capability. A key aspect to the technology is for a broader community of Java programmers to develop applications that can execute and provide predictable to millisecond granularity execution times — a critical achievement that helps the military limit development risks, lower costs and decrease integration challenges.

This implementation can be leveraged throughout the Navy. To ensure long term viability and broad industry acceptance the initiative used widely accepted standards as the basis for these product improvements. IBM WebSphere Real-Time Java product implementation is compliant with the Real-Time Specification for Java (RTSJ) and the real-time extensions to Linux are conformant with the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) standard.

This work was initiated in response to the military's need for a Real-Time Java and Linux solution based on open standards that preserves the Java programming model and supports the Navy's Open Architecture initiative. The technology is also under evaluation by other branches of the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Intelligence Agencies and others as well as non-government industries such as Financial Services and Telecommunications, where secure and highly predictable solutions are required.

"We believe that the efforts of Raytheon, IBM and Red Hat have provided the Navy and Department of Defense with an industrial strength open standards-based real-time Java and Linux solution that lowers development cost, risk as well as overall life cycle cost to the DDG 1000," said Robert Martin, software director for DDG 1000. "This partnership has been instrumental in bringing both Java and Linux to a performance and capability level that was unheard of just a year ago. And, by using open standards, there is a competitive marketplace that drives to affordable solutions."

IBM BladeCenter is the industry's leading blade server, having led worldwide revenue share in the industry for 13 consecutive quarters according to IDC (IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, 3Q06, issued on November 21, 2006). IBM has shipped over half a million BladeCenter systems since the product's inception in 2002, and is the only blade server vendor in the industry to open product specifications enabling over 700 technology and solution providers to develop products and solutions based on BladeCenter. Additionally industry organization Blade.org has fostered a collaborative community of over 80 partners focused on accelerating the development of IBM BladeCenter-based solutions.

About Raytheon

Based in Tewksbury, Mass., Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon's leader in joint battlespace integration. With a strong international and domestic customer base, Raytheon IDS provides a wide spectrum of integrated air and missile defense and naval and maritime warfighting solutions. Under the Navy's DDG 1000 Detailed Design and Integration contract awarded in 2005, Raytheon IDS serves as the prime mission systems equipment integrator for all electronic and combat systems for the DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer program. Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN), with 2005 sales of $21.9 billion, is an industry leader in defense and government electronics, space, information technology, technical services, and business and special mission aircraft. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 80,000 people worldwide.

About IBM

For more information about IBM, go to www.ibm.com


Press Contacts
Raytheon press contact
Chuck Larrabee
978.858.4259
chuck_s_larrabee@raytheon.com

IBM press contact
Scott Cook
312.529.3739
Kenneth_cook@us.ibm.com