Air Forces Moves Forward With Enterprise Information Technology as-a-Service

Five members of the Air Force Enterprise Information Technology as-a-Service (EITaaS) Project Task Force (PROTAF) attracted a standing room-only crowd at the chapter's annual conference, Alamo ACE, in November. Col. Bill Waynick, USAF, the lead for this effort, spoke to a crowd of service members, industry representatives and government civilians about the Air Force's fast-moving EITaaS endeavor. The vision for EITaaS is to have industry provide the service and information technology as a commodity. Col. Waynick stated: "The Air Force needs to repurpose airmen from doing traditional IT to core cyber tasks and [being] engaged in mission defense teams." Additionally, the discussion covered how industry can do information technology better. The EITaaS effort is focused on identity and access management; enterprise and enclave protection; unified communications; application hosting; and enterprise service hosting. There are seven bases targeted for the pilot program across the globe. A key component will be unity of governance with the Air Force chief information officer and fully understanding requirements. For example, what does the 24th Air Force want and need industry to do? With security a key topic during the question-and-answer session, there was solid agreement that risk and reward must be shared between government and industry partners. Furthermore, both sides agreed that there must be a careful balance between operations and security because this affects innovation and return on investment. As the PROTAF team moves forward, it expects to have some options briefed to Air Force leaders soon.

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