01 April 2021
From Sharon Anderson
For many, telework became the new norm. Fortunately, for Department of Defense personnel, almost immediately, the DoD Chief Information Office deployed the Commercial Virtual Remote (CVR) environment to support emergency mass telework operations. For the Department of the Navy, this brought unprecedented productivity and collaboration solutions to the Fleet, Shore, and Naval Enterprise, said DON CIO Aaron Weis.
Greetings!
It has been more than a year since the global pandemic forced us into a new reality where our physical contacts became limited to family members and essential services.
For many, telework became the new norm. Fortunately, for Department of Defense personnel, almost immediately, the DoD Chief Information Office deployed the Commercial Virtual Remote (CVR) environment to support emergency mass telework operations. For the Department of the Navy, this brought unprecedented productivity and collaboration solutions to the Fleet, Shore, and Naval Enterprise, said DON CIO Aaron Weis.
“As a Navy and Marine Corps team, we demonstrated the DON’s ability to innovate and deliver capabilities to our workforce that kept it engaged on our Nation’s most significant national security imperatives during the COVID-19 crisis,” Weis explained in his column for this edition.
The DON is now taking important steps to modernize outdated, disconnected networks and inefficient on-premises infrastructures that impede the ability to modernize its IT enterprise, efficiently utilize its data and collaborate with communities across the Department.
The Navy will consolidate existing legacy Exchange and Office 365 workloads into a new, single Navy enterprise tenant. The target state, Microsoft 365 (M365), is a cloud-based productivity, collaboration, and security software suite designed to provide seamless Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery under numerous access methods, including the DoD Information Network Navy (DoDIN-N).
While the Marine Corps took action to adopt M365 in 2020, the Navy is implementing and operating at “Flank Speed” to accelerate the enablement of M365. The M365 environment will deliver the foundational change needed to drive key advantages. This IT investment for the future will increase productivity, access and security for warfighters and the workforce. The adoption of FS is a crucial step in the modernization of Navy information while mitigating vulnerabilities through improved speed and automated software patches.
Ultimately, these efforts “will advance the DON’s goal of building a digital workplace; one that provides secured, reliable and flexible access to people, information, applications and processes from anywhere, at any time by authorized users on any device. This not only is a big step in achieving the Modernize, Innovate and Defend goals established in the DON’s Information Superiority Vision, but represents a new way of working, one that provides the DON with added flexibility and agility in responding to future events,” said officials from the DON CIO’s Office of the Chief Digital Innovation Officer.
Last November, the DON CIO held a highly successful virtual DON IT Conference, hosted on CVR, that drew the largest number of participants ever. This year’s East Coast conference, scheduled for May 24-26, will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance, as well as virtual participation; thus, combining the best of both worlds. The conference will be broadcast via Teams Live for virtual participation by the DON community on both the East and West Coasts, with sessions starting at 10:00 AM ET (7:00 AM PT).
No matter how you plan to attend, either *in-person at the Hilton Norfolk The Main, in Norfolk, Virginia, or virtually, the event promises to be just as informative and lively as the November conference.
Please join us for the latest policy and program news from DON cyber/IT professionals and senior leadership. Registration for both in-person and virtual attendance is required and is available now: https://www.doncio.navy.mil/ContentView.aspx?id=14597
You can find information and guidance about all these IT initiatives in this edition of CHIPS.
Once again, I want to salute America’s frontline workforce, those professionals and volunteers, who are providing critical services to their fellow citizens. We are so truly grateful for your service and dedication.
Be strong! Stay well!
Sharon Anderson
Sharon Anderson is the CHIPS senior editor. She can be reached at chips@navy.mil
*Please note: Travel to the event is restricted to local and East Coast regional attendees, and virtual participation is highly encouraged. Pre-registration for the overall event and each topic track is required as walk-in registration is discouraged. (In-person and track registration links will be provided at a later date.)
Covid-19 vaccination, with vaccination documentation of completed dosage (including the required waiting period after vaccination), and masks are required for in-person attendance, according to DON policy.
The draft conference schedule is now available for download below. Capacity in the meeting rooms will be limited due to 6-foot social distancing seating requirements.
Register for the virtual component.
Approval Memo
DON IT Conference Draft At-A-Glance Schedule
Originally published in CHIPS Magazine:
https://www.doncio.navy.mil/chips/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=14629
