David Cotton, acting deputy chief information officer for information enterprise at the Defense Department, said that DoD is utilizing commercial information technology in its efforts to modernize its information environment.
Cheryl Pellerin reports Friday for DoD News that Cotton told an audience at FedScoop’s 2015 Mobile Gov Summit that DoD CIO Terry Halvorsen is heading the IT-cyber modernization to connect personnel spread across various domestic and international locations.
“To us, the mobile workforce is very important. We’ve got to bring [them] capability so they can contribute to the mission wherever they might be located,” Cotton said at the event.
Pellerin writes that these efforts under the Joint Information Environment framework aim to deliver shared situational awareness on the network, ease access to data and services, and drive operational efficiency.
Cotton noted that DoD is exploring commercial cloud to provide the computing environment for the consolidated network.
“Mr. Halvorsen… wants us to run to cloud capabilities quickly on the commercial side, but with some rules — because we believe there are probably more cost-effective solutions for some of the things we do in the commercial market than there would be in our own federal data centers,” he said, according to the report.
Pellerin reports that the Defense Information Systems Agency is currently working on the security requirements for commercial cloud acquisition, while DoD also explores commercial mobile solutions with secure communications and cryptographic functions.
