The Defense Information Security Agency (DISA) rolled out a five-year strategy today that outlines its priorities in response to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) evolving threats and needs.
The DISA Next Strategy identifies a suite of capabilities and services the combat support agency must deliver to transform the DoD Information Network (DoDIN) and meet the challenges outlined in the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) through fiscal years 2025 – 2029.
“The purpose of this strategy is to drive this combat support agency’s priorities and initiatives to deliver capacity and capability to our warfighters,” Lt. Gen. Robert J. Skinner, DISA director and commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network, said in a forward included in the strategy.
He explained that the DISA Next strategy describes the agency’s journey for the next few years.
“I am confident the agency will succeed – we have no other choice,” Skinner said. “Success is accomplishing these goals and staying aligned to the DISA Next strategy while simultaneously being prepared to react to the unforeseen.”
According to DISA, the strategy aligns DISA’s day-to-day, five-year, and five- to ten-year efforts for the NDS. It includes four strategic imperatives, six operational imperatives, and eight goals.
The first two strategic imperatives and four operational imperatives describe DISA’s day-to-day mission, which are aligned to NDS priorities one through three and reflects how DISA enables the DoD and Joint Forces as they deter, defend, and campaign.
The first strategic imperative is for DISA to ’Operate and Secure the DISA Portion of the DoDIN.’
It explains how the agency will ensure that it effectively manages and secures the DoDIN Area of Operation DISA — the agency-designated portion of the network — which encompasses the Defense Information System Network (DISN) DoDIN boundary, multi-modal gateways, the transport layer and DISA services including on-premises and cloud data storage, applications, application hosting and more.
“Our priority is to simplify the network with large-scale adoption of a common IT environment,” Skinner said, adding that consolidating combatant commands and defense agencies and field activities into this environment is a whole-of-agency effort and “a key first step in providing a DoD-wide warfighting information system.”
The second strategic imperative — ‘Support Strategic Command, Control, and Communications’ — focuses on “the bad day.”
According to Skinner, connectivity is critical during peacetime and in today’s competitive environment. But it’s more imperative to have connectivity during times of conflict. A key focus for DISA under this strategic imperative is “transforming its current cloud.”
“We must develop a fully functional DoD enterprise cloud environment. That means we must provide both an active and self-managed cloud space. We must enable secure cloud access and provide relevant tools DoD customers need to fully realize cloud capabilities,” Skinner said.
The third and fourth strategic imperatives and fifth and sixth operational imperatives describe a longer five- to ten-year look at agency transformation aligned with NDS priority four — building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem.
“These imperatives capture the elements of the DoD’s desired information system that DISA is responsible for implementing – in the 2030-2035 timeframe,” the document reads.
The third strategic imperative, ‘Optimize the Network,’ outlines how DISA will optimize the DoDIN to make it more “efficient, secure, accessible, cost-effective, easier to manage and more capable of adapting to environmental changes.”
“Optimization is critical to DISA’s ability to deliver on the DoD and Joint Force needs,” the document reads.
A key factor detailed under this imperative is divesting technical debt. According to the agency, DISA cannot meet its goals if the agency maintains substantial technical debt. In divesting tech debt, DISA “must cease operating suboptimal solutions because they take critical resources from achieving the agency’s goals,” the document reads.
The fourth strategic imperative is to ‘Operationalize Data.’ According to the strategy, DISA is working to better harness and understand its data to support warfighter needs and ensure decision advantage.
“Operationalizing data means proactively collecting, storing, correlating and interpreting data – to generate information and knowledge that enables warfighters to make relevant and timely decisions,” the document reads. “To ensure the lethality and efficacy of our cyber forces, DISA must operationalize the incredible amount of data the DoDIN generates.”
“As a combat support agency and the premier IT service provider for the Department of Defense, we will continue to provide world-class services. At the same time, we are changing. We are re-organizing, optimizing, and transforming to deliver resilient, survivable, and secure capabilities to enable department success and warfighter lethality,” concluded Skinner.
