The Navy, through its new innovation cell program, is working to buy and field commercial technology faster – but it has to do so in line with broader tech-focused Defense Department initiatives like the Joint Information Environment and unified capabilities.
As DoD leaders focus on enterprise technology that centralizes military IT operations, the Navy officials say their plans for accelerating the tech acquisition process will help them become more interoperable. That eye on interoperability is going to be a guiding tenet in the innovation cell, including initial plans targeting a virtual desktop capability for the Navy that is one of the first priorities for the fast-track program.
Virtual desktop isn’t just a Navy priority; it’s also a major part of unified capabilities (UC) currently being developed and rolled out by the Army, Air Force and the Defense Information Systems Agency. But according to Navy officials, who spoke March 27 at an industry day event in Vienna, Virginia, their virtual desktop capabilities won’t operate in a vacuum.
“It’s a function of looking at the technology standards and interoperability piece. That’s the key element – if we’re interoperable with UC, if we can exchange data based upon those capability requirements, that’s going to be part of what the innovation cell looks at,” said Andrew Mansfield, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic’s executive for network centric development and integration. “The virtual desktop challenge will eventually [address] UC…we already know we have to be interoperable with those. The focus from an innovation cell perspective is going to be ensuring that interoperability.”
All of the military services and organizations are part of DoD’s transition to JIE, a sweeping overhaul of Pentagon IT operations, infrastructure and services. The innovation cell could help the Navy do its part in meeting JIE requirements, particularly in the future, according to Victor Gavin, Navy program executive officer for enterprise information systems.
“What’s the innovation cell do that’s a contribution to [JIE]? JIE is a concept, and it will be an initial architecture. But even with that architecture, the lifecycle in IT is about three to five years,” Gavin said. “What we view the innovation cell process doing for us is an opportunity to, given where we are today and [inevitable] change, continue to use processes like this to migrate to JIE increment 2, or JIE increment 3, the next variants of those technologies. This process is complementary to that because regardless of where you are today, change is coming.”
