GAITHERSBURG, MD., 11/09/2006 -- Lockheed Martin’s [NYSE: LMT] Global Combat Support System-Air Force (GCSS-AF) has received the Computerworld Best Practices in Infrastructure Management Award for Distributed Systems and Infrastructure Implementation/Dynamic Infrastructure.

This award recognizes the successful design, implementation and management of an interoperable environment, combined with a successful strategy to maintain and manage an integrated, heterogeneous information technology infrastructure including servers, networks, storage, and applications. The award also notes improvements made in service oriented architecutre and recognizes demonstrated ability to source from multiple vendors.

“We are exceptionally proud of our program accomplishments over the last several years,” said John Slota, Lockheed Martin GCSS-AF program director. “This is the fifth industry award for GCSS-AF in the last two years. Our success is in large part to our partnership with the Air Force, Defense Information Systems Agency and the GCSS-AF industry team.”

The GCSS-AF team has also recently achieved a key milestone by registering more than 875,000 users. The GCSS-AF Services Oriented Architecture provides enterprise services, including the Air Force Portal, enabling Air Force users a single point of entry to applications, information and collaboration tools. The Portal is the premier web gateway to the Air Force enterprise, giving warfighters worldwide instant, secure access to the information they need – from the status of critical parts and supplies to up-to-date information on their benefits.

The GCSS-AF portal also provides secure instant messaging to other Air Force users and to friends and family back home, allowing deployed troops to “chat” with loved ones from any web-connected computer.