Navy Details Ambitious IT Plan

Inside DHS' Classified Cyber-Coordination Headquarters

Improved cybersecurity and hiring and retaining a more skilled cyber workforce are two of the Navy's priorities for its IT operations in the next 24 months, according to its cyberspace campaign plan for fiscal years 2011 to 2013.

Navy CIO Terry Halvorsen has laid out four fairly ambitious goals for the next two years to provide more effective and efficient enterprise IT capabilities to its own personnel and to the Marines, as well as to conduct more efficient global military and business operations with partners that it works closely with.

Other goals include sustaining more operationally effective, integrated, and efficient IT capabilities, and ensuring that all enterprise IT and cyberspace investments match up with the Navy's overall enterprise strategies.

In a memo accompanying the plan, Halvorsen acknowledged that achieving all of the goals may be difficult, "but they are the right set of initiatives to move us in the direction we need to go." He added that the Navy will also keep a flexible attitude and not follow so strictly to plan if other emerging challenges or opportunities arise.

In addition to stating its goals for the next two years, the Navy also spelled out initiatives it will undertake to support them, as well as performance indicators and metrics to ensure it is achieving them.

To ensure the protection of sensitive information, the Navy plans to develop new enterprise data plans and consolidate its existing Web portals. It also will take steps to contain all authorized data sources within the Navy's enterprise architecture to prevent security breaches, according to the report.

The Navy will enact a series of new plans to recruit a more qualified IT workforce, such as creating a workforce development strategy, revising its improvement guidance for its IT workforce, and implementing a cyber/IT civilian workforce community management plan, it said.

To streamline its IT operations, the Navy--following a trend among federal agencies--plans to consolidate data centers. It also will implement a department-wide IT asset-management process, according to the plan.

The Navy also has a host of new efforts planned to align its IT strategies with its overall strategic plan. Indeed, improving IT program management so it's more in line with overall agency and department goals are a key element of an IT reform plan U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra has mandated across the entire federal government.

The Navy plans to establish processes for visibility of all Naval IT expenditures, as well as develop standards and common criteria for capital planning and investment review, it said.

Other initiatives aimed at lining up priorities include mandating a common business case analysis process; implementing Navy processes to evaluate and approve enterprise software licenses; and developing and using a strategic sourcing process for IT hardware, software, and services.