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New DISA director to publish ‘action plan’ in coming months

With only 50 days on the job, Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, plans to issue a new action plan on how he will continue digital modernization across the military.

The action plan will sketch out the areas Skinner intends to have DISA focus on over the next few years with partners across the Department of Defense, he said at the Digital Transformation Summit produced by FedScoop Thursday. He is working to publish the plan and strategy in the next “30-45 days.”

“We are doing a lot of sync sessions with mission partners, with industry, with individuals within the organization and across the department to make sure we can get this right,” Skinner said.

DISA has several major initiatives on the horizon that are generating interest from industry. It’s preparing to finalize the $11.7 billion Defense Enclaves Services contract to help consolidate military support agency enterprise IT networks, developing tools for identity management and assisting a departmentwide push to improve cybersecurity.

“One of the biggest things we are working on is identity management,” he said.

DISA recently announced its first use case for a new identity management tool that is slated to eventually be used across the department.

Senate bill looks to boost AI talent in government

Students would receive scholarships to study artificial intelligence in exchange for federal service, should a Senate bill introduced Wednesday become law.

To be eligible undergraduate and graduate students studying AI or a related field would need to agree to work for the federal or a state, local or tribal government after completing their degree for a period equal to the length of the scholarship.

The AI Scholarship-for-Service Act comes as agencies struggle to enlist AI talent, despite the U.S. attempting to become a global leader in the space — ahead of top competitors like China.

“As advancements in artificial intelligence continue, the federal government must be prepared to promote ethical applications based on American values to counter competitors like the Chinese government, which prioritizes investments in this revolutionary technology,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., one of the bill’s cosponsors. “Incentivizing professionals who are studying this emerging field to serve in the public sector will help our country remain competitive in the long term, strengthen our national security and ensure this technology is used ethically for the benefit of all Americans.”

The National Science Foundation would be expected to designate qualified institutions of higher education (IHE) for participation in the program.

Internship opportunities would also be made available, but employment preference would be given to students willing to work at executive agencies.

Recipients who fail to serve at least three years in the public sector would be made to repay the scholarship.

Peters, who cosponsored the bill with Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., previously introduced the bill in 2020, but it was never assigned to a committee.

The University of Michigan, Dakota State University, Carnegie-Mellon University, the Internet Association and BSA | The Software Alliance have all endorsed the legislation.

DOD grapples with the future of its cyber workforce

Over recent years, the Department of Defense has put a number of program and policy initiatives in place to make it easier to recruit and hire cybersecurity personnel to support the military’s increasingly digital mission. And yet, the department continues to struggle, like others across government, to make meaningful progress in narrowing its cyber skills gap, top IT officials testified this week.

“I am concerned about the pace” at which DOD is hiring and training cyber personnel, Lt. Gen. Dennis Crall, CIO of the Joint Staff, said during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel on Wednesday. “I think the divide between the need is growing compared to what we’re able to fulfill. I’m not sure we’re closing the gap, and time is ticking for us to do so.”

Veronica Hinton, acting deputy assistant secretary for defense for civilian personnel policy, described the DOD as “one of the three largest markets” for cybersecurity talent in the U.S., competing in the ruthless battle with big tech companies and others in the private sector for top personnel out of college. To improve the department’s chances in this battle, Congress has approved hiring and pay flexibilities like the Cyber Excepted Service not afforded to other agencies, while the DOD itself has worked to streamline its recruitment and better work with industry and universities.

While those initiatives in earnest are meant to work toward narrowing the skills gap, Crall said it might not be enough to keep up.

“The digital nature of the fight that we expect, especially at pace and speed, is going to demand a workforce and talent level that we have not seen before,” he said. “The human-machine interface brings a demand that is going to have to be found, cultivated, educated and implemented to get that level of experience as we learn and work our way through this new capability set.”

Continuing, Crall said, “I’m not absolutely certain” the military will be able to get “the right talent delivered at the right time.”

Admitting his take as “more sobering” than his colleagues’, Crall pointed to DOD’s limited understanding of cyber professionals as the glaring issue. “I don’t think we know our target audience as well as we need to. We need to find out what really motivates individuals to want to serve in the capacity that we’re offering.”

He also said the department must do a better job at evaluating the programs and policies set in place to bring on cyber talent. “While they’re interesting to approach and employ, they may not all deliver in the way that we expect.”

Acting DOD CIO John Sherman acknowledged too that there is “still work to be done” and that “we need a more holistic north star” to guide the department’s cyber mission, saying his office will prioritize developing a new cybersecurity strategy to update the previous version from 2018.

“We’ve put many of the key foundational mechanisms in place and have actively leveraged the tools at our disposal,” Sherman said. “But we must build on the progress by updating our overarching strategy to ensure our workforce is prepared to implement zero trust and the other latest approaches to defending our enterprise.”

Sherman really emphasized zero trust as an emerging concept that will widen the aperture for the types of skills the DOD will need to consider for cybersecurity moving forward. “For this and other evolving cyber strategies, we can expect to draw an even wider range of skill sets in areas like data and artificial intelligence,” he said.

Likewise, Crall said it’s hard enough to plan for the cyber needs of the department today — thinking ahead, say five years, is even harder as the U.S. military moves closer to its sensor-driven, connected warfare operating concept of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2).

“We have not onboarded the very capabilities we need to employ: machine learning, autonomy, artificial intelligence, a real cloud-based environment, pushing that processing to the tactical edge and a reformed network,” Crall said. “So the speed with which that’s going to require us to operate is going to have a level of human-machine interface we’ve never had before. And it’s hard for me to believe that the force we’re looking at today is necessarily rightly aligned to that new mission set. We’re going to have to lead-turn this and keep a careful eye on what those skill sets are necessary to bring this on board.”

Effective application rationalization eludes agencies

Not enough agencies are rationalizing applications effectively before migrating them to the cloud.

App rationalization involves agencies deciding which apps to keep, replace, retire or consolidate — but too often their chief information officers (CIOs) lack the data they need to make those choices, said Thomas Santucci, the director of the Data Center & Cloud Optimization Initiative project management office (PMO) within the General Services Administration.

While the federal Cloud Smart strategy mandated app rationalization, not enough agencies have a good handle on their inventory — where their application programming interfaces are and what data is being transferred.

“Right now there are too many enterprise architects using Excel spreadsheets, collecting moment-in-time instances of all of their data collections,” Santucci said during a Digital Government Institute event Wednesday. “Application rationalization takes a little bit more holistic approach in incorporating it into the acquisition process.”

The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) encourages agencies to have their CIOs approve major IT investments, but that process occurs too late and with too little data for them to make informed decisions, he added.

Agencies should collect that data in real-time. Instead, many financial management systems only deal at the investment level — like one small agency that had three investments, five security boundaries and 150 applications in one bundle, Santucci said.

App rationalization done right evaluates the total cost of ownership. And labor, not licensing, costs are paramount.

“If we start looking at the labor costs, we may save more money than we’ve done in the billions of dollars that we’ve saved closing data centers,” Santucci said.

The good news is the Cloud and Infrastructure Community of Practice (CoP) that Santucci co-chairs has grown by 2.5-times what it was 18 months prior to about 2,000 members. The CoP has 25 trainings planned, an IPv6 summit in the works and continues to share use cases.

Meanwhile, the CIO Council had Santucci’s PMO, which resides within GSA’s Office of Government-wide Policy, release a playbook on app rationalization for agencies. “We continue to concentrate on data center consolidation first and foremost,” Santucci said. “We urge agencies to close data centers, especially inefficient ones.”

Army finalizing new plan for ‘unified network’

The Army’s plan for how it will redesign its global network is slated to be finished in the coming months, the top uniformed officer overseeing the Army’s IT said Tuesday.

The service will create a “unified network” that links its enterprise IT architecture with tactical networks used by warfighters in the field, a change from the current segmented system, said Lt. Gen. John Morrison, deputy chief of staff and G-6. Creating a unified network is critical to achieving the Army’s goal of using data from the field to create a multi-domain operational system where soldiers on land can work seamlessly with fellow service members in the domains of sea, air, space and cyberspace, Morrison said.

“We are finalizing what we are calling the Army Network Plan,” he said during AFCEA’s TechNet Augusta virtual event Tuesday. Morrison is the Army’s top uniformed IT official, a role that was created last summer after the service split the traditional CIO role. He set the unification of the Army’s network as his office’s top guiding pillar.

Creating a network that will encompass enterprise and tactical workloads will require significant assistance from commercial industry, Morrison said. Once the plan is done, the Army intends to engage industry to help it build new network architecture.

In the “summer and fall we will have the architecture discussion,” he said.

One of the major challenges the Army faces in achieving the unified network is balancing access, speed and security. The whole point of unifying the network is to allow data to transfer more smoothly between systems and machines and not require humans in the loop to make connections that could easily be automated. But with more places for data to go, and presumably more endpoints using that data, opportunities ripen for hackers.

Morrison has previously said he wants to beef up the security of both the network itself and the tech operating on it with periodic reviews. He has not specified what new systems he wants to put in place but said the Army’s current security posture for its network is not up to the task.

“This is one of those effective drills that I think will allow us to apply our resources in a more efficient manner but brings a level of security to the network that, quite frankly, I don’t think we have right now,” he said.

The U.S. government needs access to commercial technologies to drive innovation

The U.S. government has been a world leader in technology innovation, making the government work better on behalf of our citizens, and funding many of the breakthroughs in commercial technology that underpin our daily lives. However, as a growing share of technology investment is coming from the private sector, the federal government is failing to adopt the best technology available.

This is costing taxpayers dearly when the government tries to build technology products from scratch when the same thing exists off of the shelf, and the lengthy government procurement process means that those charged with keeping this country safe and delivering essential services are using obsolete tools to do so.

That is why we are launching a new organization that will advocate on behalf of the nation’s most innovative technology companies and startups who are looking to do business with the federal government.

The Alliance for Commercial Technology in Government will advocate for its members in Washington, D.C., to ensure that the United States leverages commercial technologies to accelerate progress and enhance the lives of all Americans.

Many of the best, most innovative technologies are developed in the private sector with private capital. But with the time-consuming and costly nature of entering the federal market and with rules requiring consideration of existing off-the-shelf products being routinely ignored; our own government acquisition system is a barrier to progress and innovation. Based on the timelines and scale of many government acquisition programs, a small technology startup has no chance of entering the government marketplace on its own.

These barriers lead to the best available technology in the private sector only being purchased by the private sector and available to our adversaries, while the U.S. government is left with outdated and expensive products specifically designed only for government use, often incompatible with the technology products that tech-savvy employees would use every day outside of government.

I saw this personally as a government employee at the Pentagon in tasks as simple as collaborating with colleagues on documents. Our solutions were limited to emailing Microsoft Word documents with a naming convention for version control and typing messages on BlackBerries. We were using outdated technology to make policies such as the Third Offset Strategy, which was intended to give the U.S. military a long-term strategic advantage over our adversaries based on the adoption of cutting-edge technology. Fortunately, those policies generated some success. New organizations such as the Defense Innovation Unit were born out of that effort, an organization tasked with breaking down acquisition barriers to cutting-edge technology. We will work to amplify the successes the government has achieved and make easy access to government contracts the norm and not the exception.

The Alliance aims to help everyone by solving these challenges and transforming the federal government into an accessible marketplace for all technology companies, especially small companies and startups.

The Alliance has four main policy priorities it intends to tackle:

Significant progress on these four priorities would revolutionize the entire federal marketplace to be more accessible to startups and the entire commercial technology ecosystem, which will lead to much-needed modernization of our government’s technology infrastructure.

America was built on startups and small businesses; it is time the federal government creates a more accessible marketplace for commercial technology. Advocating for policies that can improve our government services and maintain our nation’s competitive advantage is long overdue. The Alliance will be the new voice to help Washington bring the best technology to the government.

David Vorland is the Executive Director of The Alliance for Commercial Technology in Government, a non-profit advocacy organization. Previously, he worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2009 to 2017.

New DARPA initiative gives contractors access to cutting edge commercial tech

Contractors working on emerging technology for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency could get access to the latest and greatest tech from other commercial companies through a new partnership the agency is forming with industry.

The Toolbox Initiative is a framework where DARPA facilitates agreements between “providers” of computing tech that could advance the work of DARPA’s contracted “performer” companies working on groundbreaking tech.

The program is currently gathering so-called “providers” to provide their tech, from chips to front-end compilers, to the DARPA “performers” working on everything from artificial intelligence to communications tech.

“We want the latest and greatest tech to come easy,” Serge Leef, the program manager in the Microsystems Technology Office leading the initiative, told FedScoop. Any time a performer spends haggling with another company for access to tech that could help advance science is “time wasted,” he added.

The Toolbox framework allows companies to access non-production licenses of intellectual property usually out of reach without lengthy contract negotiations on production terms, compensation and legal protections. It could help save the agency — which eventually would need to pick up the bill on costs associated with performers’ research — tens of millions of dollars, Leef said.

In the commercial world, if a chipmaker sells its tech to an autonomous car company, the manufacturer will put legal protections into the contracts to shield their tech from legal liabilities resulting from its use. It’s a process that can take months to settle legal negotiations over, said Leef, who has experience in private industry before coming to DARPA.

Since DARPA performers do not take their inventions to market or scale productions, they can use the non-production licenses for things like ARM processors or Rambus Inc.’s security interface controllers.

“I want the DARPA performers to have the same benefits as commercial industry,” Leef said.

For the providers in the program, they get essentially free marketing and access to the companies working on the cutting edge of science and technology. Leef described it as a win-win for both performers and providers.

The program is still waiting to fully launch, with an internal marketing campaign planned for the fall when DARPA plans to start hosting industry days. Leef said he has already heard from roughly a dozen other program managers interested in taking advantage of the framework to help their performers.

Customized agency networks are the ‘real benefit’ of 5G

Government agencies should model their 5G rollouts after the Department of Defense, which customized its network to meet mission needs rather than making it widely available, according to a National Science Foundation official.

NSF similarly has invested in foundational 5G research for the last decade and started the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research program in 2016 to provide researchers with city-scale testbeds for such customizations, said Thyaga Nandagopal, deputy division director with NSF.

The initiative plans to launch a fourth testbed focused on affordable rural broadband access in the next month or so as the government continues to refine programmable network standards.

“The approach that the DOD has taken is very much tapping into the real benefit of 5G,” Nandagopal said, during the Federal Mobility Group and ATARC 5G Government Symposium on Tuesday. “Which is you can create a custom network that suits your needs in a very localized instance.”

DOD opted to test and evaluate 5G technologies in an initial tranche consisting of five military installations before expanding to a second tranche, still underway, of seven additional sites.

Meanwhile, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has focused on managing the risks to 5G networks among civilian, state, local, tribal and territorial agencies. Of primary concern are telehealth, telecommunications, sensitive government facilities and mass transit, said Serena Reynolds, chief of CISA’s Initiative Management Branch.

“We know that with 5G largely operating on a non-standalone network, it’ll really rely on that existing 4G infrastructure to provide speed and connectivity,” Reynolds said. “And certainly as 5G is largely deployed and moves to its own standalone network, government agencies are really being able to experience more of the advanced benefits.”

Until then, legacy 4G infrastructure presents vulnerabilities CISA is looking into along with:

CISA is attempting to address these challenges through threat briefings and engagement with government agencies, the Federal Mobility Group and DOD research and development, Reynolds said.

The U.S. remains “among the leaders” in 5G technology, but competitors like China have kept pace or are catching up, Nandagopal said.

“We are still ahead,” he said. “But there’s nothing like somebody right behind you to keep you running faster.”

Space Command to launch Joint Cyber Center

The unified combatant command overseeing the military’s joint operations in space is working to stand up a Joint Cyber Center, its commander told senators Tuesday.

U.S. military branches are directing resources to the cyber center, which will look to ensure the cybersecurity of satellites and space-based communications, said Gen. James Dickinson, the Army general in charge of Space Command. Dickinson said the center will be a critical part of the command’s mission and act as a central unit that can help it integrate with other cyber-focused commands, like U.S. Cyber Command.

“We are in competition each day, both in space and cyber,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a hearing on the fiscal 2022 defense budget request.

While the larger command is focused on space operations, it already has three general officers focused on cyberspace, Dickinson said. He repeatedly responded to questions about the security of satellite-based communications saying he has plenty of cyber capabilities to protect them but it is important to integrate operations across the military. The joint center will serve as a key part of that integration.

Dickinson said he has the support of Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of U.S. Cyber Command. The 16th Air Force — the Air Force’s cyber and information warfare center — is also assisting the center along with service members from the Navy and Marine Corps already stationed at the command.

Gen. Dickinson also said a critical part of defending space-based communications is building constellations of mesh networks that can ensure the resilience of the overall system in the event one part of the network is attacked.

“I have got the resources that I need right now and I am confident in our ability to protect,” he said.

EIS team developing network-as-a-service offering

The Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions program team is developing a network-as-a-service (NaaS) offering to free agencies from the “vicious lifecycle” of replacing outdated technologies, said Allen Hill, the deputy assistant commissioner of category management at the General Services Administration.

NaaS will move agencies to a cloud business model allowing for continuous modernization of network infrastructure, similar to what’s been done for email and collaboration tools, Hill said during an ACT-IAC event Monday.

Agencies will be able to adopt emerging technologies faster from startups and build out and manage their networks without worrying about integrating new security components and software.

“There are some agencies that are going to be challenged,” Hill said. “They have a large amount of legacy inventory, and we’ve provided a number of options for them to consider to ensure there’s no break in services.”

The federal government is in a “better place” with its transition to the $50 billion network and telecommunications modernization contract, EIS, than it’s been previously, he added.

Out of 212 forecasted EIS task orders, 164 have been released to industry. A total of 93 task orders have been awarded with 55 completed and 48 more awards expected soon.

Of the 17 large federal agencies, nine have awarded all task orders, and 11 of 25 midsize agencies awarded all theirs.

The EIS team has begun its transition closeout project focused on limited and authorized users of the Networx, Washington Interagency Telecommunications System (WITS) 3, and Local Service Agreement (LSA) contracts that expire May 31, 2023.

Agencies’ EIS transitions consist of two parts: transitioning off the legacy contracts and moving all network services onto appropriate EIS task orders.

About 40% of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s spend is already on commercial contracts.

“Once we get through the legacy contracts, we’ll be moving those commercial contracts over as appropriate onto EIS task orders,” said Jeff Flick, deputy director of the Service Delivery Division within NOAA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer.

NOAA is “pushing hard” to meet GSA‘s 18-month deadline for transitioning but needs risk-mitigation contracts in place as stopgaps for any services still lagging behind, Flick added.

While agencies structure their own task orders and requirements, GSA is willing to help however it can when vendors fail to deliver on time.

“The one thing at GSA, we don’t necessarily have insight into what those specific task order requirements an agency has,” Hill said. “The agencies can certainly reach out to us, and we’ll work with them and help them to facilitate any type of challenges they may be having with the vendors.”