Army Leaders Highlight Value of PEO EIS Programs

During a keynote address on digital transformation at AFCEA NOVA’s virtual Army IT Day on Jan. 13, Army Chief Information Officer (CIO) Dr. Raj Iyer discussed the importance of data-driven decision-making to multi-domain operations success and emphasized the need to shift from a system- or platform-centric acquisition approach to a data-centric acquisition approach.

When making that pivot — which Iyer noted would not be easy — the Army needs to “stop thinking about how we buy platforms or weapon systems or IT systems, but [instead] start with data first and then build the platform and system around it to understand how the data is going to be used across the enterprise,” he said.

To advance the Army Digital Transformation Strategy in fiscal 2022, the Army will pursue initiatives within six broad categories, said Iyer: cloud, cyber, data, application modernization, service delivery and user experience, and network. Within the data bucket, the Army CIO credited PEO EIS’s Army Vantage data platform with being a “huge success.” “We clearly want to continue to build momentum on that,” he said, noting that Soldiers and other users at all levels have been able to build dashboards easily and on-the-fly.

Boasting thousands of dashboards and common operating pictures used by more than 35,000 Army workforce members worldwide, Army Vantage has truly automated how the Army collects, presents and reports out on data, said Iyer. “It’s been a huge enabler in making that change,” he said, adding that the Army is looking at how to make the changes sustaining and long-term.

Within the application modernization category, Iyer said the Army’s focus this fiscal year would be on business systems, including Enterprise Business Systems – Convergence (EBS-C). Noting that the Army completed business process re-engineering late last year and is proceeding with developing functional and technical requirements, Iyer said that EBS-C would be “very, very non-traditional for the Army.” He added that EBS-C’s transactional core might no longer be an enterprise resource planning system, but instead an integration architecture that enables the Army to put data and integration first.

EBS-C is one of PEO EIS’s four modernization priorities this year, confirmed Program Executive Officer Ross Guckert, who was part of a CIO panel at Army IT Day. Noting that EIS will be providing a draft prototype project opportunity notice for industry comment within the next month — and is planning to hold a second EBS-C Industry Day in the near future — Guckert said EIS won’t be very prescriptive to industry but will try to find out what’s in the art of the possible.

“We’re looking at how you plan to manage the data, how you enable integration and how you approach user interface and the user experience,” he told industry attendees.

Another one of EIS’s modernization priorities, according to Guckert, is the unified network, for which EIS is responsible for delivering the integrated enterprise network piece. EIS is starting off on the right foot with unified requirements for the first time, said Guckert, and is well informed by pilots across the enterprise, as well as industry’s investments in infrastructure and services.

One of those pilots is EIS’s Enterprise IT as a Service (EITaaS) program, which serves to inform Army leadership about what commercial best practices are available to run the Army network. According to Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6 Lt. Gen. John Morrison, Army IT Day’s afternoon keynote speaker, Army 365 was one of the initial successes of the EITaaS pilot, allowing the Army to divest of several legacy capabilities and approaches, gain operational efficiency and effectiveness, and scale the solution across the Army.

Turning to the topic of cybersecurity, Morrison discussed how identity, credential and access management (ICAM) — an acquisition program within EIS’s Enterprise Services portfolio — is foundational to the concept of zero trust. ICAM has got to be “the first step in applying zero trust principles,” he said. The ICAM solicitation is coming soon, he added.

Morrison also mentioned Defensive Cyber Operations’ participation in the DOD’s BA-08 pilot, noting that it’s allowing the Army to understand what a threat is doing and to expand cyber defenders’ capabilities.

“We are seeing some real benefits from that approach,” he said.