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13 Mar 14. Commercial cloud providers like Amazon will play a key role in helping the Navy and Marine Corps close data centers and reduce more than a billion dollars in IT spending, according to a Navy official. The services are shifting much of their public data to Amazon’s cloud, and officials are seeking other opportunities to move more military data to commercial solutions.
“To get where I want to go, I’ve got to get over 50 percent of my data in some type of commercial solution,” said Terry Halvorsen, Department of the Navy chief information officer. “That’s where we’re heading.”
The model could involve hosting military data in a public cloud or in a commercial facility designated for government use, said Halvorsen, who spoke Thursday at the Data Center Brainstorm event in Washington. Partnering with other agencies is another options.
“I think there is a big belief out here that we’re not going to do anything with DISA [Defense Information Systems Agency],” he said. “Just to set the record straight, we have a lot of stuff at DISA.”
He said DISA’s cloud email solution is priced competitively, and it’s being considered. There is also a place for standard data centers that are not cloud solutions, and finding the right blend of solutions is key to meeting the mission and driving down costs. The services are driving $1.3bn out of the IT budget related to data center spending, he said. Halvorsen has a dashboard view of the 150 data centers slated to be closed. While there are smaller centers that could eventually be targeted, the focus now is closing centers that will yield the greatest savings. Part of those savings will come from reducing the amount of data and applications. To do so, the services have to understand what data they have in their data centers, and what are the security risks around that data. How is the data packaged, and are they stored in applications that can be modernized? What are the data being used for, and how many times are the same data elements used across multiple databases? (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
20 Mar 14. Version 2.0 of the DoD Enterprise Portal Service (DEPS) has been released by DISA. DEPS 2.0 was delivered over SIPRNet on February 28. New features include both dedicated and shared service offerings. “The environments allow mission partners the flexibility to select the offering that best supports their mission from a range of capacity and storage options,” said a DISA news release.
“DEPS 2.0 is another example of how DISA’s enterprise services are evolving to meet the needs of our mission partners,” said Alan Lewis, DISA’s program executive officer for enterprise services. “2.0 will offer the ability to select shared or dedicated operating environments, while adhering to the principles of an enterprise service and delivering operational and budgetary efficiencies for the DoD.”
DEPS provides information sharing through scalable, cloud-based collaboration capability and an independently managed community of mission-focused sites. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
13 Mar 14. Thales secures initial order for Cougar Team Radio at
Security & Policing. Dextera Global has placed an initial order at UK Home Office’s Security and Policing exhibition in Farnborough. The new radio, being previewed at Security & Policing, has been developed to
Home Office’s Security & address the specific needs of teams working in critical and demanding Policing situations. With a rugged but lightweight design and a range of advanced features, it supports more effective teamwork. Cougar Team Radio integrates easily with smartphones. Not only does this enhance the capability of the radio network, but it also allows team members to operate more discreetly via standard consumer devices. The radios are also designed with a small form-factor for discreet operation and to minimise the equ