The Navy is pushing forward with a handful of efforts that officials say will help the service's organizations buy commercial technology faster and more efficiently.
The efforts include a new policy that standardizes documentation required under the Clinger-Cohen Act for IT acquisition, as well as a review of the Navy's IT procurement request process. That review is being carried out by a cross-functional team from the office of the Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy (Management), the Navy CIO office and Navy and Marine Corps staffs, according to acting Acting Department of Navy (DoN) CIO John Zangardi.
That working group has developed a set of courses of action and is developing a leadership briefing that will help shape the IT-buying process in the future, Zangardi wrote in a recent blog post.
A second group is expected to convene to put together the final assessment, outline proposed changes to the IT expenditure and procurement approval processes and assign responsibilities for leading implementation.
Zangardi has his sights set on commercial cloud and mobility, as well.
"Besides streamlining processes, I [previously] wrote of working to open the way for the DoN to use commercial services whenever feasible, and we at DON CIO are busily engaged in developing policy, guidance, and tools to help data owners make informed decisions about commercial cloud services," Zangardi wrote. "This spring, I expect to release a business case analysis template tailored for cloud that will assist data owners in determining if commercial cloud services are appropriate for their particular situations."
The Navy also is working on an effort through the Navy Program Executive Officer for Enterprise Information Systems that will upgrade mobile device capabilities on the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) contract. So far, servers that are capable of handling devices such as iPhones and iPads are installed and being evaluated at four unspecified sites, with more expected to come online.
The initial evaluation was limited to a maximum of 2,000 new smart phone users, but Zangardi wrote that he soon anticipates that number to grow significantly.
"The goal is to transition all NGEN Blackberry users to the new smartphones by the end of the calendar year," he wrote.
