A year ago, lawmakers proposed eliminating the Defense Information Systems Agency, but softened the language in the final bill. But in an unexpected twist, the agency\u2019s responsibilities have grown within the past year thanks in part to a Department of Defense-wide push to consolidate redundant IT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Fourth Estate Network Optimization is an IT reform effort that consolidates common IT services across the department and will now be managed by DISA as a single service provider, agency leaders said at the annual Forecast to Industry conference Nov. 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFourteen DoD agencies and field activities networks\u2019 and the associated IT staff moved under the operational control of DISA,\u201d Vice Adm. Nancy Norton, director of DISA, told the audience. \u201cThe network consolidation in transfer personnel will take place from FY20 to 24 and will improve the effectiveness of our cyber landscape across the enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials told reporters at the conference that the IT reform increases DISA\u2019s responsibilities and means the agency will maintain more items within the network. It is also expected to lead to significant savings throughout the department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat you\u2019re really doing now is moving DISA\u2019s responsibility, expanding it from the standpoint of starting at the strategic level, continue to operate strategic operations but now we\u2019re basically at the end user level where in the past we basically would deliver capability to a point within the architecture and then it was somebody else\u2019s job to carry it forward,\u201d Dave Bennett, director of DISA\u2019s operations directorate, told reporters. \u201cNow we\u2019re basically operating across the entire continuum. We\u2019re not really at the tactical level but we\u2019re definitely down in the end user arena, which significantly expands the roles and responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Norton also said this project allows other defense agencies to focus on their core mission, rather than worrying about IT. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DISA will be responsible for running IT for several Fourth Estate agencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":39633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":62,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,106,62,29,36,32,25],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3268],"class_list":["post-18515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-battlefield-tech","category-daily-brief","category-disa-forecast-industry","category-home","category-it-networks-battlefield-tech","category-newsletters","category-show-reporter"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"RNS2Q5L2YBFFDFPEHZ23VJAE7Y","arc_canonical_url":"\/show-reporter\/disa-forecast-industry\/2019\/11\/05\/nearly-eliminated-a-year-ago-now-disa-has-more-responsibility\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n