Led by the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Defense Department is turning to a new model for procuring information technology. Under that model, DISA expects to acquire computing capabilities as a managed service, buy easy-to-implement commercial solutions, and subdivide large projects into smaller components that can be combined using service-oriented architecture (SOA) standards.
DISA has told industry officials that DOD needs are changing. “The day of the big systems integrator is over,” said Brig. Gen. David Warner, DISA’s program executive officer for command and control capabilities, speaking at a recent industry luncheon.
For decades, large integrators sat atop the world of major information systems procurement at DOD. The government outsourced development and stewardship of programs worth billions of dollars, yielding control of IT acquisitions to select companies. Those companies, in turn, developed mammoth systems using proprietary technologies that ensured the companies’ involvement and continuing business with the government for years to come.
But all that is changing, defense officials and industry experts say. The pace of technological change and the evolving nature of how the military uses IT, combined with tightened budgets and the urgency of the war effort, require a new approach.
DISA will still need industry’s help in finding and delivering capabilities to meet DOD’s requirements, but that procurement process will occur on a smaller scale than in the past, Warner said. DISA will use a third party or designated “capability broker,” he said. After DISA defines a capability architecture, it will use the broker to find and deliver technologies from the private sector.
Large systems integrators’ reactions to DISA’s new policy have been mixed. Large integrators must adapt, said Anthony Valetta, a former DOD chief information officer who is now a senior vice president and CIO at SRA International. DISA’s IT procurement policy shift opens opportunities for smaller integrators who don’t manufacture and therefore don’t face ethical conflicts, he said.
Some DISA officials, however, were quick to point out that the need for large systems integrators is not going away, but their role will change. John Garing, DISA’s CIO, said the sheer capacity and experience of those companies make them invaluable for the foreseeable future. But DISA’s need for speed, agility and adaptability discourages proprietary solutions or tightly coupled systems, he said.
DISA’s new preference is for a loose SOA framework to link modules that DOD can add and subtract at will. “I don’t anticipate any large procurement that’s got a turnkey solution that requires any large integration,” Garing said.
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