The Department of Defense is asking for $42.5 billion to fund its IT portfolio documents from the department's comptroller reveal. Of that top line, $9.3 billion is slated for classified investments and expenses with $33.2 billion going toward unclassified investments and expenses.

While the fiscal 2018 request is an overall 5.3 percent increase from last year, funding levels in the 2018-2022 future-year defense plan remain "relatively" consistent, the documents note.

The IT budget funds programs and initiatives in both classically considered IT space — generally thought to be the underpinning infrastructure — as well as cyberspace operations, now a domain of warfare and maneuver space for military forces.

"Technology capabilities underpin nearly every aspect of modern defense and warfighting strategies and objectives, from the Pentagon to the front line, space and now cyberspace," the documents state. "A seamless, transparent infrastructure that transforms data into actionable information and ensures dependable mission execution in the face of the persistent cyber threat is vital in this new IT-driven operational environment. The strategic landscape for DoD IT is an environment that delivers unified capabilities across DoD and connections with critical mission partners."

The documents outline a variety of strategic goals pushed by the DoD chief information officer's office. Of note, some include the Joint Information Environment, which the documents describe as "a modernized IT enterprise with enhanced network performance that is more secure and visible throughout."

JIE has been misconstrued as a deliverable product rather than what it's architect, former CIO Terry Halvorsen, who retired in February, envisioned as simply a concept. Moreover, JIE is not a formal program of record, but its objectives — such as the Joint Regional Security Stacks— are being funded collectively by the individual services.

The documents also outline goals such as successful mission operation in the face of advanced cyberthreats that will require establishing resilient cyber defensive posture, enhanced cyber situational awareness and assured survivability against sophisticated cyberattacks, along with providing a DoD cloud environment, something Halvorsen has hit on many times. This includes providing a hybrid cloud environment, which Halvorsen has described as on- and off-premise clouds, and a shared DoD enterprise IT service.

Additionally, 748 data centers were closed between FY10 and FY16, with an average estimated cumulative cost savings of $271 million. The documents estimate annual savings in FY18 of $64.1 million.

Other key segments DoD provided figures for include:

  • $549 million for acquisition.
  • $2.8 billion for battle-space networks.
  • $14.9 billion for DoD IT infrastructure.
  • $1.7 billion for "health"

Service IT requests, according to the documents, breakdown as follows:

  • Army: $11 million.
  • Navy: $9 million.
  • Air Force: $7 million.
About Mark Pomerleau

Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for C4ISRNET, covering information warfare and cyberspace.

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