FIRST LOOK: DISA Campaign Plan 2011-2012

The Defense Information Systems Agency's Campaign Plan 2011-2012 adds more focus and definition to the agency's near- and long-term directions, including a renewed emphasis on enterprise services and mobile-computing technologies.

  was released June 20 providing more focus and definition to the agency’s near- and long-term directions, including a renewed emphasis on enterprise services and mobile-computing technologies.
The Defense Information Systems Agency’s Campaign Plan 2011-2012

This is the second time the agency has published a campaign plan. In 2010, DISA issued an initial plan defining its strategic objectives, setting priorities and establishing initiatives to better align resources and budgeting.

This year’s campaign plan addresses head-on the warfighter requirement to have the latest information for both garrisoned users and those at the “edge,” who require access to information anywhere and anytime, allowing them to make informed decisions.

“The 2011-2012 Campaign Plan really starts better defining some the areas that we need to focus on in terms of technology and architecture to further enable those edge capabilities,” said Paige Atkins, DISA’s director of Strategic Planning and Information. “It’s a refinement and additional focus in that area. Everything we do we have to keep in mind the edge, whether the tactical edge or the mobile user.”

“Operationally, we must enable services for the edge; any user, any device, anywhere – to include mobile users,” states DISA Director Lt. Gen. Carroll Pollett in the opening section of campaign plan.

Central to this effort is DISA’s enterprise infrastructure, a converged platform consisting of the Defense Department’s core communications, computing and enterprise services that allows the warfighter to connect to the information resources they need from any device, anywhere in the world.

Pollett said in the plan that DISA is “continuing to make progress” on providing an efficient, secure and integrated enterprise infrastructure. The agency makes the case that an integrated information enterprise must support new service-oriented implementations, including cloud computing and server virtualization.

“Cloud computing is widely recognized as a fundamental shift in the way IT is managed,” states DISA’s campaign plan. “The agency will focus on the maturation and migration to cloud service models.”

DISA is the logical organization within the Defense Department to meet the need for a defense cloud, providing infrastructure, software- and platform-as-a-service for the enterprise standardized across the department, said Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting.

“It’s a more disciplined approach that is the direction that DOD is going to have to take,” Suss said.

Enterprise email is a high-priority initiative in the partnerships section of the campaign plan, a reference to the Army’s enterprise e-mail migration to the private DISA cloud. The Army enterprise e-mail solution is hosted at nine of DISA’s Defense Enterprise Computing Centers (DECCs).

“DISA has done a great job in many ways of establishing a robust, mature, high-bandwidth infrastructure to serve DOD,” said Suss. “The next challenge for them is to build on this infrastructure and to move to providing enterprise services. They’ve taken some important first steps in that direction, most notably in working with the Army to put their e-mail in the DECCs.”

The continuing challenge for DISA and the DECCs will be to suppress the appetite for service-unique, one-off solutions and to encourage the use of standardized defense-wide services, he said.

Going mobile

DOD’s increasing use of smart phones and tablet computers has made information sharing an expectation among warfighters that require new capabilities, particularly in the edge or tactical environments that have limited availability to robust connectivity. “Advances in mobile-computing technologies offer significant and unprecedented opportunities for seamless information sharing to end users,” states the technology forecast section of the campaign plan.

To date, however, DOD has not kept up with technology in the area of mobile computing, according to DISA’s Atkins.

“We see young folks on the civilian or military side coming in [to the department] and they are used to using smart phones and other devices, and they don’t have the same kinds of capabilities when they are trying to perform their mission,” she said. “We are very focused on enhancing those capabilities, leveraging the mobile technology, adapting it to our environment and ensuring that as we move forward we have a good strategy in place to be able to take advantage of those technologies.”

According to the campaign plan, DISA is hoping to drive DOD’s implementation of mobile-computing devices by providing:

  • Mobile applications that include capabilities for visualizing mission information on mobile devices.
  • Application storefronts for delivery of applications, updates and device configurations.
  • Server infrastructure required to support rich mobile applications.
  • Mobile-device services as a virtual network provider.
  • Enterprise security configuration standards.

In May, DISA issued a request for information from industry seeking advice on how the agency might become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator to manage more than a million smart phones and other devices. According to the RFI, DISA is trying to learn from Mobile Network Operators and Mobile Virtual Network Enablers the steps, resources and lead time required to support more than a million mobile subscribers.

Resource constraints

DISA’s 2011-2012 Campaign Plan was developed with the sobering reality that DOD’s budget has assumed an overall downward trend.

“We must deliver these operational capabilities in a resource-constrained world and while budgets continue to decline,” states Pollett in the plan. “We must optimize and consolidate – tough choices lie ahead.”

However, Suss believes that Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ initiative to reduce redundancy, improve cost effectiveness and efficiency of operations across DOD is going to play to DISA’s strengths.

“What you will see in the future are fewer large programs of record and more standardized enterprise services similar to the enterprise e-mail initiative which will be put in place using existing capabilities within DISA’s DECCs,” he said. “Cost is going to be such an important driver, and there is going to be more pressure toward standardization.”

Declining budgets and fiscal constraints aren’t the only challenges facing DISA. DOD’s pace of military operations around the globe has been a drain on the agency’s resources. According to the campaign plan, over a four-month period in fiscal 2011, DISA supported an unprecedented six simultaneous operations.

“Although successful in responding to global operations and crises, lessons learned from recent operations have pointed to a major gap – the need for an integrated strategic approach for information sharing that can rapidly support the range of operational needs across the department,” according to the campaign plan.

“We identified some themes and gaps in these operations over the last few months, and we’ve leveraged those lessons learned to provide more focus and definition to our overall intent,” said Atkins. “One of the powerful elements of the campaign plan is that it ultimately allows us to synchronize our outcomes and deliverables with our resources. Everything in the campaign plan is not fully funded. But, it helps us to guide our POM activities, helps us prioritize and helps us focus."

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.