Cuviello: No more islands of enterprises
Connecting state and local government leaders
An Army executive CIO board has been visiting different commands over recent months to learn and share best business practices, said Army CIO Lt. Gen. Peter M. Cuviello, in an effort to take the service from 'information hoarding to knowledge sharing.'
An Army executive CIO board has been visiting different commands over recent months to learn and share best business practices, said Army CIO Lt. Gen. Peter M. Cuviello, in an effort to take the service from 'information hoarding to knowledge sharing.'
It's all a component of the Army transformation initiative, where systems management at about two dozen major commands will be combined under Cuviello's office. Another component of Army transformation is the agency's enterprise e-mail portal, Army Knowledge Online. Each of the Army's 1.2 million personnel is under orders to get an account on the portal.
'Right now we have many enterprises. We're getting everyone to understand there's only one enterprise, and that's called the Army,' said Cuviello, who spoke today during a monthly luncheon of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's Washington chapter. '[There' ll be] no more islands of enterprises out there. The Army realized we really have to maintain from the top to the bottom.''
The Army recently received 65 responses from IT vendors in response to a request for information about the architecture the service will need to consolidate its various command and control systems. The Army also sought feedback from industry on whether to issue a single request for proposals for the project, put out multiple requests or negotiate blanket purchasing agreements.
Cuviello said the Army is reviewing the feedback and will decide which way to proceed by late spring. The service plans to finish its enterprisewide systems realignment by next October, Cuviello said.
He said the Army has learned by watching the Navy roll out the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet. NMCI is an enterprisewide, managed system for voice, video, and data communications that will merge 200 networks into one Navy intranet, linking more than 360,000 desktop PCs. The Navy chose Electronic Data Systems Corp. for the $6.9 billion, outsourced job.
'Industry did a lot of comparisons for us on what NMCI is doing and what we could adapt,' Cuviello said. 'When I think about it, the day that contract was signed, the Navy had configuration control. We're still trying to get to that point.'
NEXT STORY: Wisconsin uses Internet to aid homeowners