Increasing demand on networks, budgetary declines, growing complexity of cyber missions and heightened global threats are the four pressure points weighing on the implementation of the Joint Information Environment (JIE), the top official for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) said Monday.
To fulfill its vision for interoperable data across the defense components, DISA will need to wrangle the opposing forces of having to do more with less–all while cyber threats mount against the Department of Defense network. Though it is not a formal program, JIE provides guidance for streamlining IT among the 15,000 enclaves that comprise the defense network. As the services and defense sub-agencies implement new IT projects, they are encouraged to work off of shared standards and open principles.
According to the new DISA Strategic Guidance released Monday, JIE will see the agency and the joint force work to “incrementally normalize and synchronize fixed and wireless communications, application rationalization, sun setting legacy systems, and consolidating computing centers to enable a collaborative and secure infrastructure [SIC].” Fully realized, JIE is positioned to bring the defense network into the future beyond the conflicts that have engaged the department for the past decade.
“The one thing that I have posited to the seniors within DISA is to make sure that we do not build the enterprise of the future based off of last year’s war, if you will, or the last war that we have fought,” DISA Director Lt. Gen. Ronnie Hawkins said at the AFCEA JIE Mission Partner Symposium in Baltimore, Md.
Outlining the four pressure points that could stymie progress, Hawkins said the first problem is coping with the growing demand across the board for network capacity. He emphasized that, contrary to industry concerns, DISA’s cloud model employs commercial solutions to ease internal pressures.
“The fact of the matter is that well over 60 percent…of our DISA cloud is run by our industry partners,” he said.
Embracing the cloud will not only improve service delivery, but it will help defense agencies to tackle insider threats, he said. More than just storing data, cloud-enabled computing can more effectively manage the influx of users onto the network. Cloud-based programs will allow the department to analyze the heuristics of every user while they are connected to the network. Hawkins said the cohesive cloud environment will give IT managers the ability to answer questions such as, “How are they maneuvering? Where is it that they’re going?” Better oversight and analytics will help them to more quickly pinpoint anomalies in user behavior.
As for the second pressure point of budget declines, Hawkins was optimistic that JIE can actually save money in the future, despite initial costs to implement the programs associated with it. A main component of JIE is driving down costs through shared services, including enterprise-wide email and consolidating network architecture within regions through Joint Regional Security Stacks (JRSS).
“As we build out the JIE, as we build out an environment for the future, we can also help the services…offload that work to DISA and that would be able to free up their workforce to do other things as well,” Hawkins said.
The third pressure point of growing complexity of the devices and software running on defense networks has forced DISA and DoD to tackle IT stovepipes in favor of JIE’s horizontal approach. Hawkins said this will create a “more defensible architecture.”
“We believe it enables us to do the DODN C2 [Department of Defense Network Command and Control] a lot better than we have been able to in the past,” he said.
To serve as a better example to other defense components, DISA is working on reducing complexity within its own IT systems. The agency plans to bring its in-house helpdesks into a single service environment by July, allowing it to better address network problems.
“If we’re going to be telling the services they need to come to DISA and they need to collapse their own capability, we need to do the same thing,” Hawkins said.
Finally, the fourth pressure point of elevated global cyber threats has meant that any JIE-related programs must be aimed at securing data at rest and in transit. Hawkins said DISA is particularly focused on building out mobile options and keeping information in data centers where users can access it virtually. Part of mobility and enhancing virtualization is an ambitious plan to eliminate desktop computers for DISA’s executives in less than two years.
“We’re looking at securing the data versus always securing the appliance,” he said.
Despite the four pressure points, DISA has unofficially set 2020 as the goal line for JIE. Brig. Gen. Brian Dravis, director of DISA’s JIE Technical Synchronization Office, said DoD will consider declaring victory when JIE has met some minimum thresholds over the next six years. Speaking at a media roundtable following Hawkins presentation, Dravis referred to JIE as a “global continuum.”
“When will we end? That’s very hard to say.”