The Defense Department’s ongoing move to enterprise-wide IT services got a boost in the form of President Barack Obama’s proposed 2016 defense budget, with the Pentagon’s leading enterprise IT effort receiving more than a six-fold increase in spending.
Funding for the Joint Information Enterprise under the Defense Information Systems Agency’s budget grew from $13.3 million in 2015 to $84 million in 2016, part of DISA’s nearly quadrupled procurement budget of $1 billion. DISA is leading the DoD-wide move to JIE.
DISA’s Defense Information Systems Network, the military’s backbone for network communications, saw an increase in procurement funding as well, up from $80 million last year to $141 million, as the network undergoes upgrades.
As DoD pushes ahead with JIE, enterprise IT services and IT infrastructure upgrades, some legacy efforts saw significant funding decreases, including DISA’s net-centric enterprise services program, which fell from $3.7 million last year to a mere $444,000 in 2016.
In the Navy, procurement funding for enterprise IT jumped from $87 million to $99 million.
Cybersecurity spending in the 2016 largely remained flat under research, development, testing and evaluation, with some shifting of funds going on within the more than $149 million in funds specifically labeled as cyber.
In the Air Force, cyber operations technology development gained $82 million in RDT&E money, an effort that was new in the 2016 budget. Air Force RDT&E defensive cyber operations investments grew from $5.6 million to $7.7 million, while offensive cyber operations fell slightly from $13.3 million to $12.8 million. Likewise, RDT&E money for the Air Force rapid cyber acquisition lost $1 million on the year, with a $3 million allocation for 2016.
Across DoD, defense-wide cyber intelligence funding fell slightly from $6.7 million to $6.5 million, and some cyber programs appeared to go unfunded in 2016, including a line item for defense-wide cybersecurity advanced research.
Network-centric warfare technology was a winner in RDT&E spending, growing from $360 million to $453 million as part of DARPA’s $1.3 billion budget for advanced technology development.
Elsewhere in RDT&E – a area of the DoD budget that grew by half a billion dollars in 2016, to $13.5 billion – Navy unmanned systems development received more than $350 million across several programs, including $227 million for RQ-4 Global Hawk R&D. Last year, that category received only $45 million. However, funding for the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike dropped off from $400 million to $134 million.
At the Missile Defense Agency, research and development for command, control, communications and computers (C4) fell to $10 million, after receiving $13 million in 2015 and $35 million in 2014. Defense-wide C4 interoperability funding, however, inched up from $63.5 million to $65 million under DISA’s RDT&E budget. Across DoD, a new line item for unmanned aerial vehicle integration and operation allocated nearly $42 million.
In the Army, signals modernization funding more than doubled from last year’s $21 million in procurement funds to $50 million in 2016. The Army’s Defense Enterprise Wideband SATCOM Systems also increased from $118 million to $196 million. The Joint Tactical Radio program received a $25 million increase to $65 million, while WIN-T procurement spending grew from $664 million to $783 million.
The Army’s ongoing installation IT modernization effort received a boost in the new budget, with installation information infrastructure modernization growing from $80 million to $103 million.
In the Army and the Navy, each service’s version of the Distributed Common Ground System saw a plus-up in funding, with DCGS-A growing from $192 million to $314 million and DCGS-N increasing from $24 million to $32 million. However, the Marine Corp’s version was practically defunded, with their program dollars shrinking from $20 million to $1.9 million.
The Navy’s Next Generation Enterprise Network budget increased significantly as the service executes its transition from the Navy-Marine Corps intranet, with procurement funding for NGEN growing from $2 million in 2015 to $67 million in 2016.
Elsewhere in the Navy, tactical/mobile C4I systems funding fell from $16.7 million last year to $13.6 million in 2016, while C4ISR equipment funds remained essentially flat at just under $10 million. A line item for Navy SATCOM systems included a jump of nearly $20 million on the year, to $31 million, while funding for the Navy multiband terminal fell off from $248 million in 2015 to $118 million in 2016.
Spending on the Navy’s Rapid Technology Transition program, designed to quickly field new technologies to meet emerging and urgent naval requirements, more than doubled to $18 million in the proposed budget.
In the Air Force, investment in strategic command and control procurement doubled from $140 million to $287 million, while general IT funding fell from $43 million to $31 million, and mobility equipment funds were cut in half to $62 million.
Across DoD, investment in military manufacturing science and technology jumped from $90 million last year to $157 million in 2016 as Pentagon officials seek emerging manufacturing capabilities and other advanced technologies.
