DOD releases updated IT management guidance

Defense Department Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen has signed updated department-wide guidance for managing IT services.

The second edition of the DOD Enterprise Service Management Framework includes standards for managing IT services and sets requirements for the acquisition and contracting of IT services “based on industry best practices,” the Defense Information Systems Agency said in a statement. “Contributions to the framework came from many DOD components as well as industry.”

The framework will guide DOD CIO oversight of the department’s IT services. Unlike the first edition, DESMF II’s scope goes beyond DISA-owned or adjudicated IT services to include all such DOD assets.

Efficient management of IT services is a “critical component” of the success of a department-wide initiative to standardize and consolidate IT networks, known as the Joint Information Environment, Halvorsen said in a statement.

“The long-term intent is to mature the DESMF based on input and lessons learned” from the various DOD components, he added in a memo that precedes the framework.

Work on a draft of the third edition is underway.