Net Direct Systems

While any solution provider can boast about solving a customer's needs with innovative and cost-effective solutions, only Net Direct Systems (NDS) can claim it solved a military challenge by integrating 21st century technology with a primitive form of transportation--a donkey.

How NDS solved the unique requirements of this project are part of what earned the Apex, N.C., integrator the VAR of the Year award for Advanced Technology Deployment: Mobility.

NDS was called on to adapt its military-focused Tactical Communications System (TCS) for the rugged terrain of the arid Middle East. Besides the traditional deployments in Humvees and at field stations, TCS also needed extreme mobility, hence the donkey.

In collaboration with Hewlett-Packard, NDS designed the TCS as a tactical server solution for the military's network requirements. The TCS provides data, voice and video communications and runs on a number of diverse power sources, which is vital for the military.

The typical configuration includes a 4U impact-resistant composite case with 4.2 TB of storage and a separate 4U case with redundant tactical power and battery-backup system. A third case contains the server enclosure with redundant power and two Cisco Systems' Layer 2 and 3 switches. The enclosure also contains eight dual-processor servers with two 300-GB hard drives with more than 4.5 TB of storage.

"We sold into the military not because we understood the procurement process, but because we had a solution the troops needed," says Doug Helmink, the company's president and COO.

For the TCS solution, in particular, Helmink says NDS has reduced the system's failure rate in very harsh environments from more than 70 percent to less than 3 percent. That translates to improved communications and safe troops.

NDS happened into the government sector somewhat by chance when a software provider asked it to do some high-end security work for the Navy. In turn, the Navy contracted directly with NDS.

"We realized the government needed what we had, and there was an opportunity for great advancement using our technology," says co-CEO Phil Santoni.

In sum, Helmink says NDS is about a "dynamic of high energy, of not saying no, of delivering on a promise and doing it in a stellar way."