On DoD
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The Defense Department is creating a new commodity technology shared service provider to serve the Pentagon and other locations in the Washington, D.C. area. DoD will issue a memo in the coming weeks to merge the Army\'s IT agency and other IT service providers into the Defense Information System Agency. In his biweekly feature, \"Inside the Reporter\'s Notebook,\" executive editor Jason Miller has exclusive details of this new shared services set up. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to review them.
April 13, 2015 -
The Navy says its aging fleet of nuclear-armed submarines can\'t last much longer. The Ohio-class subs now doing the job were supposed to be retired years ago. But replacing them is complicated and costly. It\'s also the Navy\'s top shipbuilding priority. Rear Adm. Joseph Tofalo, the Navy\'s director of undersea warfare, spoke about the Ohio replacement program at Sea-Air-Space 2015. He joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive with a preview.
April 13, 2015 -
The Defense Department is creating a single shared-services office for all commodity information technology for the Washington metro area and placing it under the Defense Information Systems Agency.
April 13, 2015 -
Within weeks, the Army says it will deploy systems that, for the first time, will give commanders access to the systems they need for mission command and planning, while they and their troops are airborne.
April 09, 2015 -
The Air Force is adding triple the staff to its F-35 Integration Office. That increases the staff from four to 12. And Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Welsh, said the aircraft\'s cost curve is finally starting to come down. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian is the new director of the F-35 Integration Office at the Air Force. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he talked about cost, capability, and lessons learned from the program.
April 08, 2015 -
The Department of Navy\'s Cyber Fleet Command is among the first military services to recognize the need to operationalize cyber along with traditional weapons. DISA Director Gen. Ronnie Hawkins said the Joint Regional Security Stacks (JRSS) should move into a cyber range to test the security architecture against real-world attack simulations.
April 08, 2015 -
Last week marked the death of a great, if largely forgotten, American. Robert Hite was a co-pilot in the legendary Doolittle\'s bombing raid over Tokyo in the midst of World War II. Doolittle\'s Raiders shattered the idea that Japan was invulnerable and changed the psychology of the war. Hite\'s oral history has been preserved by the Air Force Historical Research Agency. Its director, Charles O\'Connell, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more of what the agency does.
April 06, 2015 -
Defense Secretary Ash Carter has tapped the Air Force\'s Eric Fanning to be his chief of staff, creating some movement in Air Force leadership.
April 06, 2015 -
Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,has sent a letter to Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James accusing the Air Force of engaging in a \"shell game that simply moved money to fund the same positions elsewhere in the service.\"
April 06, 2015 -
Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have sent a unanimous, bipartisan letter to the Government Accountability Office asking for a new review of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, the DoD office in charge of helping military members and civilians living abroad cast their ballots. The committee notes that GAO has issued several reports on FVAP since 2001, but says that \"continued management attention to FVAP still remains a priority.\"
April 06, 2015 -
The Navy is trying an innovative way to find innovative solutions. It\'s inviting smart people that know computers to sign up for an online game. It\'s an open-sourced wargame where contestants can change both how the Navy and the game work. Don Brutzman is associate professor of the Naval Postgraduate School. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he shared the details on how to play the Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame game.
April 03, 2015 -
The Defense Department is in the final stages of a test to show how derived credentials from the Common Access Card can secure smartphones and tablet computers. Richard Hale, the deputy CIO for cybersecurity, boldly predicts that by the end of the calendar year the military will be issuing derived credentials on mobile devices.
April 03, 2015 -
Task Force Cyber Secure will attempt to apply the same degree of rigor and oversight DoD uses for its computing networks to everything else that's vulnerable to cyber threats, including weapons systems and industrial control systems. The Air Force is following in the footsteps of the Navy to ensure cybersecurity is everyone's responsibility.
April 03, 2015 -
The Navy is offering five spots on a $300 million contract for information technology development. Sixty-one companies are already showing interest in making an offer. Nicholas RisCassi is a quantitative analyst for Bloomberg Government. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he said you can expect fierce competition for a spot on the contract because many of those companies already have a working relationship with the Navy.
April 02, 2015 -
The Navy is applying its 20-year-old open systems architecture strategy to a new class of ships. The OSA strategy tackles acquisition and system development in a modular way, so the Navy can customize weapon systems and designs throughout the lifecycle of the program. Nick Guertin is director of transformation in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he said open systems architecture is even more valuable today because it also drives down costs.
April 01, 2015