FCW Insider: Nov. 5

The Defense Information Systems Agency has begun setup to move its clients to DODNet, a new single service network for support defense agencies and field activities. Lauren C. Williams has more.

The U.S. Coast Guard is developing a counter-drone capability to protect both its own locations and to guard protected assets under special circumstances as provided for under a recent law. Adam Mazmanian reports.

Steve Kelman argues in his latest blog post that Chinese spying through the popular video-sharing app TikTok is less of a threat than the platform's impact on young users' brains.

As advanced 5G wireless services spread out from large metro areas in the coming years, telecom carriers advise federal agencies with far-flung locations to work with local governments to get connected. Mark Rockwell explains.

Quick Hits

*** The Defense Information Systems Agency has been pushing forward with its MilCloud 2.0 migrations and has moved nearly 30 of its own unclassified applications to the environment with plans to begin migrations to the classified version later this year.

David Bennett, DISA's operations center director, told reporters during the agency's forecast to industry event Nov. 4 that DISA has moved 28 of its own unclassified applications to MilCloud 2.0 and the Defense Contract Management Agency recently completed migration of 29 applications in 90 days.

Army Maj. Gen. Garrett Yee, assistant to DISA's director, said the migrations were going well overall and that Army Materiel Command committed to migrate all of their apps to MilCloud 2.0.

"We recognize, the department recognizes, we will continue to be in a multi-cloud environment. There will be a big, general purpose cloud, there will be MilCloud 2.0, there will be special purpose clouds," Yee told reporters. "The reality is there will be a combination of lots of cloud capabilities; it's a matter of finding the right capability for an application to be hosted some place."

DISA also plans to have a classified version by January 2020 but is waiting on approval before migrating. The agency is also developing a group of cloud shared services and backend capabilities providers can use without having to create their own, Bennett said, which aims to reduce costs and deliver a more consistent "look and feel in terms of delivering and leveraging services within the cloud."

*** The National Association of State Chief Information Officers endorsed the DOTGOV Act of 2019, which expand the .gov domain and provide the Department of Homeland Security with resources to train small governments on how to migrate their sites to the .gov domain and expand online services. The bill's cosponsors included Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Gary Peters (D-Minn.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.).

*** The Congressional Budget Office found that that costs associated with a Senate bill to kickstart cybersecurity research and development at the Department of Energy would be slightly cheaper than appropriators expected. The Energy Cybersecurity Act of 2019 would direct Energy to establish a research, development and demonstration program for applications and technology that improve energy sector cybersecurity and conduct testing and mitigation for new vulnerabilities. The bill calls for $900 million between 2020 and 2029, but the CBO score shaves off approximately $68 million from that estimate, at $832 million.

*** FCW's sister publication, Washington Technology, is hosting a 2020 Market Outlook discussion this Wednesday. Click here for more on the speakers and discussion agenda.