A person recognizable to anyone who has been in military information technology for a few years offered MILCOM 2009 attendees insights into where the Defense Information Systems Agency is headed. Tony Montemarano, component acquisition executive, DISA, revealed that the agency is working on a campaign plan in which the word “convergence” is used time and time again. The plan, which is in the midst of final modifications, comprises three lines of operations: enterprise infrastructure, command and control, and information sharing.

In the area of enterprise infrastructure, Montemarano explained that it is important for companies to know that DISA operates networks, computing environments and entire systems, and each of these has its own set of business processes and different cost-recovery schedules. In this way, the agency is still stovepiped, he allowed.

The focus today is on convergence so that warfighters can plug into the cloud or network to get the information they need. To this end, DISA is trying to drive anonymity out of the network so that troops as well as DOD personnel can access the network from wherever they are and that access is attribute-based. “That’s what we’re focusing on. How do you do that?” Montemarano asked. At DISA, the program is called Enterprise User, he revealed.

Today, DISA is moving toward everything over Internet protocol (EoIP). This approach causes some problems, Montemarano allowed. “In my business, technology doesn’t bother me; technology doesn’t cause me headaches. Culture causes me headaches. Getting people who have always done something one way to adapt to the way other organizations do things is critical to getting them to work together,” he stated.

The danger of EoIP is the same as putting all your eggs in one basket, Montemarano admitted. But it is exactly for this reason that information assurance and security become all that more important. This is particularly true as DISA makes the nonsecure Internet protocol router network (NIPRnet) a true intranet, he said.

Montemarano was honest and upfront about the problems the agency has faced with the Net-Enabled Command Capability. “It didn’t do what we expected it to do. The department is currently rethinking how it wants to go forward. We are going to take this rather significant effort and cut it back. We’re going to go incremental with very small incremental pieces each and every year. The objective and the requirements documents remain in place. We are going to continue to move with a service-oriented architecture, loosely coupled net-centric environment, but we’re going to do it in a more incremental fashion. That tells you something. If you’re going to do it over time, the destination is probably going to change,” he explained.

In the current environment, policy has not kept pace with technology to enable the information sharing that today’s capabilities offer. Combatant commanders still have to look at multiple screens to see all of the data streaming into their operations centers and to obtain total situational awareness.

To solve this problem, Montemarano stated that these capabilities must be brought together as an enterprise service. “We haven’t gotten there yet, but we are honing in on a solution,” he shared. Details of the solution could not be divulged because the competition to provide the capability is still underway.

Top Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) officials met with industry today to share their strategy and plans for the future. Lt. Gen. Carroll F. Pollett, USA, director, DISA told attendees at the Forecast to Industry Day that the agency is looking to the commercial sector to engage with DISA’s leaders and help shape the future. Although he is considering developments in the short term—four to five years—he is especially focused on where the military and the United States will be 10 years from now as he makes plans and fills current requirements.

Technology alone is not DISA’s primary concern, Gen. Pollett said. With a vision of “Leaders Enabling Information Dominance in Defense of our Nation,” the agency’s focus is on how to deliver capabilities to the warfighter more efficiently and effectively. Commanders aren’t concerned with how a capability is delivered, he pointed out, they just want the capability at their disposal when they need it. The difference in bringing command and control, infrastructure and information assurance to the edge in today’s environment is that the edge is everywhere in irregular warfare, he said. The general emphasized that he is not interested in proprietary solutions.

This strategy will require resources—both in funding and personnel, he noted. “You can have dreams and visions, but without resources, all you have are dreams and visions,” the general stated. Some of his concerns include retaining intellectual capital when the agency moves its headquarters from Arlington, Virginia, to Fort Meade, Maryland, as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure decision. To address this issue, DISA’s leaders are reviewing what skill sets are needed, which may result in retraining and shifting personnel, he explained.

The general has spoken with the combatant commanders of nearly all of the combatant commands and the leaders of each of the services to improve his understanding of their requirements. These meetings also contributed to an understanding of how DISA can leverage its relationship with the commercial sector. However, DISA is not making a to-do list as it has in the past. Instead, it is creating a living document that can be changed over time, he added.

“What will we do next?” he asked rhetorically. “That’s where my focus is. What am I doing so international coalitions, national-level leaders and warfighters have capabilities? How do we partner with industry to accomplish this?” He agreed that the partnership announced yesterday between the General Services Administration and DISA will result in greater efficiencies, improved processes, more capabilities to the warfighter, “and if we’re lucky, we’ll save some money in the process,” the general said.

In addition to DISA partnering with industry, Gen. Pollett said the agency also needs companies to partner with each other to develop enterprise solutions.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the General Services Administration (GSA) have entered into a partnership to streamline acquisition of commercial satellite communications (SATCOM) services. Announced yesterday, the agreement will lead to a hybrid of GSA’s multiple award schedules and indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contracts. Officials of both organizations are lauding this collaborative effort as “historic” and agree that the Future Commercial SATCOM Access contract will be worth $5 billion over a 10-year period. The partnership has been years in the making, GSA and DISA officials allowed.

During a media roundtable, officials from both agencies agreed that the partnership will offer benefits in a number of areas. It creates a common commercial SATCOM marketplace for all of their customers, including federal, state and local government organizations. By sharing contract replacement costs, it will save taxpayers millions of dollars, though officials did not share specific estimates of the savings. It also ensures that all government customers have access to technology that meets government information protection regulations.

DISA market research was used to determine the targeted service areas to be included under the partnership. The result was a focus on transponded capacity, which includes dedicated bandwidth on a commercial satellite in any commercially available frequency band; subscription services, which involves pre-existing, pre-engineered fixed satellite service (FSS) or mobile satellite service (MSS); and end-to end solutions such as bandwidth that can include FSS and MSS components as well as hybrid solutions of both.

The GSA’s Schedule 70 will be refreshed to accommodate the transponded capacity and subscription services, and ID/IQ contracts will be established for customized end-to-end solutions. The strength of the program is that there is a 20-year potential life cycle that features “on ramps” and “off ramps” so that companies that are not selected immediately can vie for the business at a later time, DISA and GSA officials agreed.

The Schedule 70 refresh announcement is planned for the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, and a draft ID/IQ request for proposals release is scheduled to take place during the second quarter of fiscal year 2010.

On the DISA side, this agreement allows for multiyear commercial SATCOM leases, although traditionally services have been procured using operations and maintenance funding, which covers a single year. However, if additional funding is granted, there is no limit to the length tasks can go on, including to the length of the contract. DISA will maintain its decentralized ordering authority from the U.S. Defense Department; the GSA is simply providing the vehicles.

Savings are expected to be realized by both vendors and the government as a result of this partnership. Companies will be able to present their solutions to a single source through a single process, saving them overhead expenses. The government will be able to take advantage of the economies of scale. In bandwidth buys alone, savings of 10 percent to 15 percent could be realized, says Bruce T. Bennett, director of satellite communications, teleports and services, DISA.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has had to juggle technologies to maintain effective service to its customers—the defense community. Both civilian and military Defense Department organizations depend on DISA for vital connectivity around the clock and around the globe. While the agency has been able to tap commercial capabilities to a greater degree, its customer demands—especially for bandwidth—have been growing faster than expected. SIGNAL Magazine’s April 2009 issue takes a look at how DISA is meeting the challenge of customer service while laying the groundwork for potential future requirements.

First, Information Services Inch Closer to the Edge, from Executive Editor Maryann Lawlor, examines just how the agency is adjusting to the tsunami of new information technologies and capabilities. Her expert source is none other than John J. Garing, DISA’s chief information officer and director for strategic planning. Lawlor also includes a sidebar on a cloud computing service, called the Rapid Access Computing Environment, called RACE. The RACE platform also powers Forge.mil, which News Editor Rita Boland wrote about previously in February’s Project Brings Open-Source Methods to Defense Realm.

Boland also contributes to April’s DISA focus report with Division Evolves to Keep Connections Safe for Everyone, which looks at how DISA’s Field Security Operations Division struggles with the ongoing conflict of ensuring security and accessibility. Both the security players and their strategies have changed considerably, and that change may be only beginning.