The Defense Information Systems Agency has released its 2015-2020 strategic plan, laying out core agency missions and objectives in getting IT services to Defense Department users.
Officials announced the new plan on June 16.
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The strategic plan centers on a handful of objectives, including:
- Providing global infrastructure for the delivery of IT services and communications;
- Streamlining command-and-control decision-making;
- Enabling cyber operations and sovereignty with a focus on speed, agility and access;
- Reducing costs by cutting redundant capabilities and production.
"We are at an operational crossroads," DISA Director LTG Ronnie Hawkins writes in the opening pages of the strategy. "We continue to operate in a contested battlespace, where the barrier to entry is low and oftentimes unchallenged. We must recognize that mission success is defined by our ability to pre-emptively disrupt, degrade, or deny our adversaries, both internal and external, unimpeded access to the information and capabilities of the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN). We must sustain our operations and defenses before, during, and after an attack by reducing the attack surface, continually improving defensive cyberspace operations, and effectively commanding and controlling the DODIN."
The strategy reiterates the Joint Information Environment as a "cornerstone to the Department's future," critical to command and control operations up and down the chain of command, regardless of location or device. The document also highlights IT modernization and agility within an agency that provides the military with unified capabilities accessible on-demand in real time.
According to the strategy, DISA in the coming months will evolve JFHQ-DODIN, continue to deploy and operationalize the Joint Regional Security Stacks being set up around the world, continue DISA's ongoing reorganization efforts and enhance mobility and collaboration abilities.
The plan also calls out efforts to continue to develop a cyber workforce, including by coordinating with intelligence community agencies.
At the heart of the strategy are operating principles, described as "tenets by which the agency makes key strategic decisions."
Among those principles are a single point of entry to access DISA information and services; the optimization of DoD investments through streamlined acquisition, contracting and requirements processes; and improved agility and speed to market that allows rapid deployment of technology to troops on the ground, including through "DISA-first fielding and test methodology."
The strategy also includes a significant portion dedicated to future technologies and capabilities, including centralized networking under a single integrated transport network, flexible computing and storage technologies for an "elastic data environment," unified capabilities that strengthen information-sharing, improved mobility and cybersecurity.
Technologies that enable those capabilities are on a so-called DISA Technology Watchlist, the document notes.
