Parliamentary Search

Written question asked by Mark Hoban (Conservative) on Tuesday, 24 October 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 26 October 2006. It was answered by Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour) on Tuesday, 7 November 2006 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Departmental IT

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which databases operated by his Department are located (a) wholly and (b) partly outside the UK; and where each of those databases and parts of databases is located.
Answer

Information on the number and location of databases, either wholly or in part, outside the UK is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The major database owners in the MoD are the MoD Finance Director, the Armed Forces Personnel Administration Agency (AFPAA), the People Pay and Pensions Agency (PPPA) and the Defence Communications Services Agency (DCSA). Only the DCSA has overseas databases.Two of the DCSA's integrated project teams (IPTs) manage, operate or maintain databases that are able to be located outside the UK. The Logistics Applications IPT (LA IPT) operate 168 applications, a number of which are deployable onto ships, land and air units. Therefore, there will be periods when sub-sets of databases are abroad or generated abroad. Quantifying this would be extremely difficult. Examples of the more deployable applications are: GLOBAL (not an acronym), Unit Maintenance Management System (UMMS), On-board Automated Ships Information System (OASIS), Visibility in Transit and Asset Logging (VITAL) and Work Recording and Asset Management (WRAM). There are some servers for WRAM at Gutersloh (Germany).Defence Corporate Business Applications IPT (DCBA IPT) support the Theatre Operational Medical Datacapture System (TOMD System). This is a military standalone laptop system which is used to data capture medical data world wide with UK forces but is primarily used in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.There may be instances of databases created locally at overseas locations, particularly in Permanent Joint Operating Bases (PJOBs), for tasks specific to their location. There is no way of identifying these centrally, although as the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) networks roll out, these databases will be identified and either brought up to standard and then managed by the DCSA, or de-commissioned.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
451 c1457W;451 c1457-8W; 97762
Session
2005-06
Subjects
Databases Ministry of Defence
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk