Air Force headquarters transitions to enterprise email

The Air Force's headquarters offices, mostly based in the national capital region, has completed migration to the Defense Department's enterprise email system, according to a DOD release.

Roughly 7,800 unclassified email accounts, plus an additional 1,300 mobile devices, transitioned from Air Force-managed e-mail accounts to enterprise e-mail over the course of 60 days. DOD's enterprise-mail program is led by the Defense Information Systems Agency.

The Air Force's move follows the Army's migration to the program, which was completed in August 2013. It remains to be determined what or when other components of the Air Force will follow headquarters into enterprise e-mail, but the initial transition marks the first since DOD CIO Teri Takai issued a mandate that all of the military must move to enterprise email by the first quarter of fiscal 2015.

The memo detailing the mandate, which went out last September, directed all DOD agencies to have migration plans in place and inventories of classified and unclassified accounts ready by Jan. 3.

The department-wide move to enterprise email is part of broader DOD plans for its Joint Information Environment.

"DOD enterprise email is a core service of the Joint Information Environment," Air Force CIO Lt. Gen. Michael Basla said in a DISA release. "As the Air Force adopts a [DISA]-managed enterprise capability, we better align with joint warfighter needs and can apply greater focus on our core mission areas, rather than operating and maintaining an email infrastructure."