DOD moves forward with Defense Knowledge Online
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The Army and the Defense Information Systems Agency are moving forward with the vision of a single enterprise service online portal for all of the Defense Department.
HILTON HEAD, S.C.'The Army and the Defense Information Systems Agency are moving forward with the vision of a single enterprise service online portal for all of the Defense Department.
Along with representatives from the Navy, Air Force and the other military agencies, the Army and DISA are leading the working groups to create the initial requirements and standards, and figure out what existing components can be reused to develop the Defense Knowledge Online portal, said Skip Harborth, the chief of future operations, Army Knowledge Online.
'We are in the requirements mode right now,' Haborth said today at the 26th annual Management of Change conference sponsored by the American Council of Technology and the Industry Advisory Council. 'We want to take what we have with the Army Knowledge Online and what DISA has, and evolve that over time. We don't have the funds for the big bang and [to] turn on all the services.'
Kevin Carroll, the Army's program executive officer, Enterprise Information Systems, said the initial rollout of DKO likely will merge AKO, DISA and the Joint Forces Command portals.
'The Air Force and Navy will still have their own portal,' he said. 'Part of the overall strategy we still are figuring out is when they will join the DKO.'
To pull the initial DKO together, Carroll said, DISA and the Army will use AKO's contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. The Army awarded the $152 million contract last July.
Harborth said AKO expects Lockheed to begin implementing a new architecture 'soon,' and DKO should rely on that new technology.
Carroll added that DKO originally would have been launched this summer, but because of funding issues, the Army is redoing the program's timeline.
'Lt. Gen. [Steven] Boutelle and Lt. Gen. [Charles] Croom are focused on making this happen,' Carroll said.
John Garing, DISA CIO, said there are some challenges to making DKO happen, including ensuring that it can scale to the number of users and that the contracting language is appropriate.
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