The Department of Defense is staring at a classic enterprise IT challenge, only on a massive scale. Facing billions of dollars in budget cuts, the DOD must decide where to invest its IT dollars in order to save money across its operations, and where to pinch IT spending. But with national security on the line, the stakes are much higher--it must do so without compromising its IT infrastructure and applications.

The answer comes in the form of a new plan that aims to replace the military's branch-specific systems and networks with a more efficient, and ultimately more capable, enterprise model. The strategy will require changes that go well beyond new IT systems. "This plan commits us to changing policies, cultural norms, and organizational processes to provide lasting results," DOD CIO Teri Takai told Congress earlier this year.

The Pentagon has the biggest IT budget of any organization in the world: $38.4 billion in fiscal 2012. But that budget's a moving target, as the DOD is under intense pressure to cut its overall spending by tens, potentially hundreds, of billions of dollars over the next five years.

The new IT Enterprise Strategy and Roadmap identifies 26 tech initiatives to be carried out over the next 10 years. The strategy, crafted by Takai along with CIOs of the military branches, was signed by the deputy secretary of defense in early October and is due for public release this month.

The DOD drew on best practices from the private sector in devising its plan, which is spelled out in a 48-page document. The strategy identifies networking services, computing services, end user services, application and data services, and business processes as areas of focus. It provides benchmarks for sought-after efficiencies, including a 30% reduction in servers and up to $3.5 billion in ...