U.S. Army Officials Reveal Several Surprises

Speakers at AFCEA International's TechNet Augusta conference describe near- and long-term modifications to business as usual.

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Sep 12, 2014, 04:30 ET

AUGUSTA, Ga., Sept. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Cloud computing, acquisition and the Joint Information Environment (JIE) are among the most talked about topics in the U.S. Defense Department, and some military leaders may consider the status quo adequate. But U.S. Army leaders speaking at TechNet Augusta 2014 described several changes in thinking that will likely influence the way the service does business now and in the future.

Lt. Gen. Mark Bowman, USA, director, command, control, communications and computers/cyber and chief information officer, Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is no longer the Defense Department's cloud computing broker. "People can do a business case analysis and decide where they want to go to get their cloud support, if someone can figure out the secret sauce on how to get it cheaper. It has to be provided to the right security standards, and it will have to be checked," Gen. Bowman stated.

Regarding the Joint Information Environment (JIE), the general also shared that senior military leaders will try to hash out differences on the environment's command and control (C2). Gen. Bowman said that several major players have "come back with critical nonconcurs," including a few of the combatant commands and services as well as the National Security Agency. "We need to do this right, and we need to do it now. We need to have this C2 construct—how we're going to run the network—decided and implemented no later than first quarter, fiscal year 2015," he stated.

Gen. Bowman was not the only Army leader who discussed change during the conference. Lt. Gen. Robert Ferrell, USA, the Army chief information officer/G-6, reported that the service is laying out an aggressive path toward the network of 2025. That path includes eliminating its data centers and moving services to DISA's data centers. The service has eliminated about 52 percent of its network and is projecting billions of dollars in savings in "enterprise services, capacity and security," he said.

Additional coverage of TechNet Augusta 2014 is available online.

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