LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
The 633rd Force Support Squadron Military Personnel Section is hosting briefings to ensure all Langley Airman are prepared for the Air Force Personnel Operations Agency upgrade and transfer of Military Personnel Data System to the Defense Information System Agency's Defense Enterprise Computing Center, and are informed of the actions that must be completed prior to the shutdown.
The briefings will be held at the Langley Base Theater Sept. 11 through 13, during the hours provided below:
12 Sept. 13 Sept.
9 a.m. 10 a.m.
11 a.m. 11 a.m.
12:30 p.m. 12:30 p.m.
2 p.m. 2:30 p.m.
The entire project is scheduled for December, and is expected to take 20 to 23 days.
During that time, MilPDS will not be accessible. Several essential personnel and pay systems, education and training systems, and transactional applications that rely on data in MilPDS will be impacted during the upgrade.
MilPDS is the primary records database for personnel data and actions. It is also used to initiate Airman pay actions, maintain Air Force accountability and strength data and support a host of interactions with other Air Force processes and systems that rely on personnel data.
The hardware will be moved and the main application and database will be upgraded through two versions to bring the system to industry standard. The goal of the project is to have the same general functionality that is presently on the new platform.
MiLPDS has been upgraded several times in the past to enhance its capability. The last upgrade occurred in 2003, when MilPDS was moved to version 8i. The current upgrade will take MilPDS through several versions to upgrade it to version 11i.
During the past 2 years, Oracle has worked with Air Force to bring MilPDS up to industry standard on a stable and secure web-enabled platform.
Starting in December, the current system will be turned off. The data will then be copied, migrated to the next software version, and then upgraded to another version. Hardware will then be physically transported to the Defense Information Services Agency, loaded to their environment, validated and turned on.
Air Force officials are urging Regular Air Force Airmen who are eligible to reenlist or extend their current enlistment in December and early Jan. 2013, to complete these personnel actions by Nov. 15 to avoid processing delays and military pay issues.
Reenlistment-eligible Airmen or Airmen with service-directed retainability requirements such as Permanent Change of Station or retraining orders should contact their base Military Personnel Squadrons and complete their reenlistment or enlistment extension paperwork.
Airmen can reenlist during the upgrade in December, but they may experience additional delays in processing these transactions if their date of separation expires during the MilPDS upgrade. AFPC officials also noted there are no changes to the Selective Reenlistment Bonus or Critical Skills Retention Bonus eligibility criteria.
Reserve and Guard members will receive specific instructions from the Air Force Reserve Command and Air Reserve Personnel Center concerning how the MilPDS upgrade will impact their personnel programs. More information is available on the ARPC public website at http://www.arpc.afrc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123316601.
For more information about the MilPDS upgrade, visit the myPers website at http://mypers.af.mil.