Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Changes in contracting practices are ushering in a new era for the U.S. Army -- Washington Technology

Changes in contracting practices are ushering in a new era for the U.S. Army -- Washington Technology: "Last year’s acquisition policy pronouncements are starting to be felt across to the U.S. Army, with upticks in cloud computing initiatives, increasing use of fixed-price contracts and adoption of social media.

“Army IT spending will remain stable; the goal is to optimize the IT [spending]. Optimization will be guided by computing trends,” said Gary Winkler, Army program executive officer for enterprise information systems.

Efforts to improve efficiency, realign spending priorities and streamline a cumbersome acquisition process were launched during the past year amid a tightening national budget by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
Leading the charge for the Army’s efforts to hold down spending and become more efficient are cloud computing initiatives, mobile technologies, data center consolidation and social collaboration, Winkler said."

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Cyber Defense




The US military is preparing for 21st Century electronic warfare and cyber terrorism. A joint US Cyber Command and four service cyber commands have been set up.

Their mission is to defend American military networks and civilian American infrastructure from cyber terrorism and from foreign government hackers.

The officers leading these cyber commands explain how they are organized, how they operate, and how they will protect the United States from foreign military hackers, intelligence agencies, and cyber terrorists.