In the U.S. Army, a secure IT infrastructure isn't just important, it's paramount. But the Army often has to buy extra third-party software, request product changes post-release, or write and tweak software on its own just to meet those special needs. There may be a better way.

Enter Lt. Col. C.J. Wallington, whose 12-or-so-person advanced technology group sets up tests of products before they ever hit the shelves. "It pays for us to get it right the first time," he said. "If we work with vendors before something's released to market, we eliminate problems. We increase posture, productivity and everything else by accelerating time to delivery in the field."

Wallington sees the Army as a powerful partner and admits he has leverage some others may not. "As you can imagine, I get a lot of attention," he said. Still, he doesn't take that for granted, adding, "Don't let anything stand between you and an opportunity to partnership." The Army takes that philosophy to heart: It's been involved with as many as 35 alpha and beta tests at once, all to make sure vendors fit the Army's needs once things hit production.

Despite the small size of Wallington's organization, which reports through to the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS) and via a dotted line to the Army CIO, it isn't any rinky-dink testing lab. The Army is running a 7,700-user test of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1 and earlier ran a 2,500-user test of Windows Vista. Such big tests may actually be necessary in some circumstances: There are more than 800,000 users on Army networks.

Still, few tests are as big as the Exchange and Vista tests because not just anything can make its way to production computers. The Army is cautious with relatively untested products, especially from a security standpoint. Yet the breadth of beta tests is impressive. It covers from Oracle, SAP, and IBM to Apriva (secure mobile e-mail) and everything in between, including the Apple iPhone. "It's going to have a long ways to go before we get the iPhone into the enterprise," Wallington said.

The need to keep soldiers alive informs Wallington's every move. "Everything we do really needs to support the pointy end of the spear, the guy actually pulling the trigger," he said. "If it's not doing that, maybe it's not something we should be spending our time on. Then, now that we're supporting the end of the spear, what does he need?" Without that measuring stick and strong partnership drive, the Army would still be stuck building things it shouldn't have to on its own.