GSA and Treasury Sign Agreement to Pilot Governmentwide Messaging Services

News Releases GSA and Treasury Sign Agreement to Pilot Governmentwide Messaging Services

GSA: # 9375

January 2, 1997
Contact: Bill Bearden
202-501-1231
Internet: bill.bearden@gsa.gov

The General Services Administration (GSA) and Department of the Treasury have entered into a Memorandum of Agreement regarding Treasury's Information Technology Innovation Fund proposal for Information Infrastructure / Electronic Messaging Services.

This agreement, endorsed by the Government Information Technology Services Board's E-mail Steering Subcommittee (GEMSS), sets the stage for a partnership between GSA's Federal Telecommunications Service (FTS) Center for Electronic Messaging Technologies (CEMT), (also known as the U.S. Government's E-Mail PMO) and Treasury's Office of Telecommunications Management (OTM). The E-mail PMO will be responsible for the overall governmentwide E-mail strategy, directory services, and ensuring that government user needs are satisfied.

Under the terms of the agreement, Treasury will pilot the use of its existing network infrastructure, which is the largest secure private network in the civilian government and possibly the U.S., to provide messaging services to other government agencies on a reimbursable basis. Working jointly with the GSA CEMT, Treasury proposes to install, configure, operate, maintain and provide the following:

A private Administrative Management Domain (ADMD) (Figure 1) for the federal government (e.g., ADMD=GOVMAIL) as an alternative to existing ADMD systems. Software that provides this function is already in use at Treasury as a Private Management Domain (PRMD) and, working with the FTS2000 Network B ADMD (Telemail), has been tested to verify ADMD functionality. The scope of the project is to configure, install, and integrate software and hardware to provide the requisite ADMD functionality. The ADMD will offer services that include:

X.400 electronic messaging using the 1992 Message Handling System (MHS) standard that fully supports the 1984, 1988 and 1992 X.400 EOS implementations. The MHS has an integrated Message Store, a User Agent, work agents, and administrative utilities. The ADMD will be configured with the capabilities to interface with P772 requirements required by the Defense Messaging System, with or without the FORTEZZA capability.

The X.400 ADMD, via a standards-based API, will provide the government with the capabilities to meet the NARA Guidelines regarding message archiving from the Message Store.

Support for X.400 messaging protocols over X.25, async and TCP/IP.

An SMTP/MIME gateway to translate X.400 messages to be delivered from/to customer SMTP/MIME-based systems and Internet addresses. The ADMD will route all SMTP/MIME messages to the Internet via a proxy-agent based firewall similar to the firewall configured and in use supporting the "treas.gov" domain.

Translation gateways for translating: cc:Mail; Lotus Notes; Novell Groupwise, Microsoft Mail/Exchange, MHS and other legacy e-mail systems, such as OfficeVision/400, PROFS, DEC All-In-1, HP Desk and HP Openmail.

Message Store (MS) capabilities that support desktop client software to access user mailboxes over asynchronous dial-up lines as well as TCP/IP or X.25 networks, and include MAPI (Messaging Application Program Interface), POP (Post Office Protocol), and IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol) support. (NOTE: Remote User Agents with UAFI [User Agent File Interchange] support [for EC/EDI] are available for Windows, DOS, and UNIX workstations. A Remote User Agent is also available for Macintosh systems.)

Centralized Messaging Help Desk - Treasury will be responsible for the operation of the Interagency Messaging Help Desk. The Messaging Help Desk will directly interface with the network management system in use by the ADMD and will provide users with professional, expert assistance to solve day-to-day messaging-related problems and issues. Treasury will develop and publish standard operating procedures for the Help Desk and monitor and document all calls for assistance.
Figure 1 - Private ADMD (GOVMAIL)

An X.500 Conformant Directory Service (Figure 1) to provide:

1993 conformant X.500 Directory Server, LDAP server front-end, Directory User Agent (DUA), and API facilities to support replication of government White Pages or Yellow Pages lookup services for both users and applications. This Directory Server would be subordinate to the government root Directory Server (o = u.s. government) currently managed and administered by GSA. For purposes of the pilot, the Directory Server could shadow the root Directory Server.
Support for messaging-enabled applications (e.g., e-mail system directories, calendaring/scheduling, X.509v3 certificate authority, etc.).
Access protocols that include X.25 and TCP/IP.
Multi-vendor interoperability supporting clearly-defined protocols (DAP, LDAP and DSP) and application programmer interfaces (APIs). Directory information can be exchanged with both X.500 and non-X.500 directory services.
A multi-protocol Electronic Commerce Clearing House (ECCH) (Figure 1) providing a messaging infrastructure that includes X.435 and EC/EDI translation and protocol conversion services (as required), both an Internet-based and a standards-based (X.400) message transport system, and address selection for EDI mailboxes of registered users, real-time message tracking, and multiple EDI syntax support (e.g., X.12, EDIFACT, binary file exchange, UCS, ODETTE, etc.) to the federal government. Treasury will work jointly with the relevant GSA Program Management Offices to implement and manage these services. In addition, the ECCH will provide:

Origin authentication to provide a means for one party to validate the identity of another.
Secure Access Management to protect resources of the message handling network from unauthorized use.
Data confidentiality to ensure that the contents of the message are known only to the sender and the recipients.
Data integrity to protect against the modification of the message contents.
Non-repudiation to provide irrevocable proof to a third party that a message was actually sent by the sender or received by the recipient.
Multi-protocol support with default access modes via X.400 P1, X.400 P7, X.435 PEDI, SNA LU6.2, 3270, TCP/IP FTP (Poll and Forward/ Store and Forward) , SNA RJE, SNA 3770 RJE, Asynchronous, Zmodem (TGX), and Odette File Transfer.
Access control options that include simple password-based protection, hardware key with ciphered identifier, electronic signature, or protocol implementation dependent.
Integration of EDI and InterPersonal Mail (e-mail) environments.
Customized tradelogs per EDI mailbox.
Customized billing procedures.

The agreement calls for Treasury to:

Define the performance measures for the pilot;
Effect a comprehensive feasibility and engineering study to determine the validity of an additional private ADMD and to provide sufficient legal clearance and approval to function as an ADMD.
Provide customers with a comparative analysis between service providers and shall provide service to customers on a no-cost basis during the pilot.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:

Mr. Jack L. Finley
Director, Center for Electronic Messaging Technologies
General Services Administration
(202) 501-3932