The Sentinel project will be run internally by a dedicated team that will include its own redundant management, with primary and secondary employees assigned to each spot on the team, Azmi said.

The contract awarded to Lockheed Martin is valued at $305 million over six years, and the Bethesda, Md.-based company said it expects to assign about 200 people to work on the Sentinel project. The estimated $425 million price tag for the entire implementation includes money for additional costs, such as independent system validation and verification work.

Sentinel is due to be delivered in four phases. The first phase, expected to be completed in about a year, includes development of a Web portal that will enable FBI workers to access legacy systems via a modern user interface that supports Web services.