• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

TESTIMONY OF
DAVID M. WENNERGREN
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

BEFORE THE
HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

REGARDING DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION EFFORTS

 March 31, 2004 

Capabilities Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to discuss the Department of the Navy's (DON's) vision for leveraging the power of information technology (IT) to transform the warfighting and warfighting support (business) processes of the Navy - Marine Corps team.

TRANSFORMATIONAL VISION

The Department of the Navy has made significant progress in implementing our vision of network-centric warfare and knowledge dominance.  Inherent in network-centric operations is the seamless exchange of information from sensors to shooters, to logistics, maintenance and re-supply organizations, breaking down traditional barriers between "tactical" and "non-tactical" IT systems.  Transformation of our business processes and systems is driven by, and is inextricable from, our warfighting transformation. The concept of net-centricity requires that authoritative data be available on demand to warfighters, other decision makers, and the supporting business and logistics activities that maintain their ability to fight.  Our DON Information Management/Information Technology (IM/IT) Strategic Plan provides the goals and objectives that are guiding us in this transformation of our Naval warfighting team.  Through its implementation, we are re-inventing processes, generating efficiencies, eliminating duplicative systems and applications, embracing strong portfolio management/capital planning efforts, and focusing on the core set of systems and applications that will ensure our forces are prepared to meet the demands of the 21^st Century warfighting environment.  These efforts focus on commercial standards, industry best practices and interoperability to ensure that our solutions will work effectively with our joint, Allied and Coalition partners, as well as within the Federal Enterprise Architecture guidelines.

CREATING A SEAMLESS IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Net-centric operations require connectivity across our Enterprise to make critical information available when needed to warfighters, other decision-makers and support personnel.  Such connectivity requires a seamless infrastructure that replaces traditional disparate, isolated local area networks.  Building on the successful framework of the Department of the Navy's Information Technology Infrastructure Architecture (ITIA), the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) is being implemented to provide the access, connectivity, interoperability and security foundational to our business system transformation.

The NMCI initiative provides network-based information services through an innovative performance-based contract using state of the market equipment and industry leading service providers.  NMCI is a vital component of the DoD Global Information Grid (GIG), interfacing with our deployed networks (IT-21 and MCEN) to serve as the conduit for the exchange of data, information and knowledge.

Our implementation of NMCI has significantly improved our IT enterprise, and will increase productivity through greater knowledge sharing and improved interoperability.  A review and certification process for all applications deployed on the network has been implemented to ensure compliance with security and interoperability requirements.  The value of this revolutionary IT initiative has been demonstrated repeatedly.  Over the last few years, it has resulted in improved security and continuity of operationsfacilitated training for our military personnel, highlighted opportunities for efficiencies, and provided invaluable support to the deployment of capabilities such as pierside connectivity and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).  NMCI is absolutely crucial to the success of our warfighting and business IT transformation.

We will continue to build on the success of NMCI as we integrate all Naval networks within the DON architectural framework, based on open standards and fully aligned with the GIG and the Business Enterprise Architecture and Federal Enterprise Architecture.  Our Naval IT team has made substantive contributions to all of these important architectural efforts and will continue to play an active role in them, as well as in the various national and international standards bodies to ensure that Naval IT solutions are cost-effective and interoperable with our warfighting and business partners.

IMPLEMENTING WEB-BASED BUSINESS IT SOLUTIONS

One of the great benefits of implementing NMCI has been the ability to identify all of the systems and applications in use across the Department.  The Department has made great strides in implementing portfolio management.  Our Functional Area Managers (FAMs) are employing sound investment management practices in overseeing legacy application reduction and alignment of our IT investments with required operational capabilities.  Thus far, by eliminating outdated and duplicative software, our FAMs have reduced the number of approved applications on NMCI by over 89% from 67,000 to approximately 7,000.  Over the months ahead, we will go through the migration process to retire legacy applications, identify authoritative databases and improve business processes to optimize operational effectiveness and investment decisions.

We remain committed to the reduction of legacy applications and databases and identification of Enterprise solutions.  FAMs have defined the core functions performed within their respective areas of responsibility to ensure that IT capabilities and solutions are aligned with operational requirements.  This approach mirrors that of the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) and use of the FEA Business Reference Model (BRM).  The FAM-defined core functions are being mapped to both the BRM and to the DoD Business Management Modernization Program (BMMP) Domains to ensure alignment from the DON to the DoD and Federal levels.  The significant progress our FAMs have made has resulted in a number of valuable lessons learned on the importance of aligning the IT portfolio from both the functional and the warfighting process perspectives, and we are sharing these lessons with the BMMP Domain Owners. Our rationalization efforts include designation of the Department of the Navy Application and Database Management System (DADMS) as our single authoritative database for applications and databases.  As the authoritative source, DADMS will be a key tool in our future investment decisions.

To support migration to a web-centric environment, the DON has begun implementing a Navy - Marine Corps Portal (NMCP) strategy.  The NMCP will integrate existing individual portals, providing secure access to all DON IM/IT capabilities through a single point, further improving efficiency and security, and simplifying access to self-service transactions for our Sailors, Marines and civilians.  The Enterprise portal will ease discovery and retrieval of information and provide the entry point to standard Enterprise applications and databases.  Our aggressive data management will ensure that net-centric solutions use authoritative data sources for optimal decision-making in both the warfighting and support domains.

Our goal is a web-enabled Navy-Marine Corps team, a mobile workforce with access to secure self-service transactions, via the web, around the world.  Our movement to web services solutions will provide for the establishment of single authoritative data sources and will eliminate "stand-alone" and "stove-piped" legacy systems.  Key to this transition is the adoption of open standards.  The Navy-Marine Corps team continues to be a leader in defining and adopting standards that will facilitate information exchange through technologies such as Extensible Markup Language, or XML.  Our XML policy will enable us to securely exchange data across the Enterprise and eliminate costly point-to-point data exchange interfaces.  To this end, our policy prohibits the use of proprietary extensions to commercial specifications that would inhibit interoperability.

Our commitment to adopting industry best practices led us to implement four enterprise resource planning (ERP) pilots using commercial-off-the-shelf software (COTS).  The benefits of ERP include improved readiness through reduced supply/maintenance cycle times, increased financial accuracy, elimination of redundant applications and databases, enhanced configuration management and reduced IT systems costs.  The Naval team has derived a greater margin of efficiency by adapting our processes to work within the COTS solution, rather than creating costly unique versions to fit our existing processes. The four ERP pilots will now be converged into a single ERP, to provide even greater productivity enhancements and cost efficiencies.

EMBRACING eGOVERNMENT BEST PRACTICES

We have made a concerted effort to embrace eGovernment best practices to transform labor-intensive paper processes into reengineered, efficient, and effective web-based solutions.  Aligning with the tenets of the President's Management Agenda, our DON eBusiness Operations Office provides, through its innovative consulting work and pilot projects, substantial efficiencies, resource savings and cost avoidance across every mission area of the Department.  The office's groundbreaking work has been recognized across government as a best practice and has been adopted by other Agencies for their own transformation efforts.

I chair the DoD Smart Card Senior Coordinating Group (SCSCG), the DoD-wide alliance for rollout of a single smart card for the Department of Defense.  The SCSCG has been instrumental in the successful development of the Common Access Card (CAC) that is being issued to all active duty military, Selected Reserve, government civilian and selected contractor personnel - a total population of approximately four million.  This card, with its Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) digital certificates, is crucial to providing the capabilities of digital signature, secure authentication and single sign on, which, taken together, offer even greater opportunities to reduce IT system costs, improve information security and encourage the adoption of web-based solutions.  We will continue to champion the crucial role of identity management as a part of our business transformation, and I have been asked to lead the DoD Identity Management Senior Coordinating Group, which will integrate and align the Department's smart card, PKI and biometrics efforts.

MAXIMIZING THE DEPARTMENT'S BUYING POWER

The Department of Defense Enterprise Software Initiative (ESI), which is co-chaired by the DON, has produced twenty-three software acquisition best practices that are allowing the Department to consolidate software requirements, streamline acquisition and leverage the Department's vast buying power to reduce costs and improve licensing terms and conditions.  As an example, the DON was able, through ESI, to consolidate 170 separate contracts for Oracle database products to a single Enterprise license with a discount of over 62% off the GSA schedule price.  The ESI initiative is providing significant cost avoidances and putting into place Enterprise agreements that will support our implementation of ERP and web services solutions.  We anticipate that our portfolio management processes will identify additional Enterprise licensing opportunities.

FULL DIMENSIONAL PROTECTION

The security of our information, systems, personnel and critical infrastructure assets is fundamental to net-centric operations.  The DON's Full Dimensional Protection approach includes three components: (1) protecting knowledge pathways through Information Assurance (IA) and Defense-in Depth, (2) protecting our Centers of Knowledge through Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP), and (3) protecting our Knowledge Workers through efforts to protect individual privacy.  These efforts will ensure the reliability, availability and integrity of DON information and information systems; protect our people and protect the critical infrastructure needed to defend and secure our mission-critical capabilities.

The Department of the Navy Critical Infrastructure Protection (DON CIP) initiative continues its efforts to identify, prioritize, assess, remediate and protect those infrastructure assets (both cyber and physical) most critical to successful operations plan execution. In partnership with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and NORTHCOM, DON CIP is implementing innovative strategies to enhance mission assurance. The Naval integrated vulnerability assessment (NIVA) brings together already existing and robust Navy and Marine Corps capabilities to conduct coordinated, comprehensive assessments of mission reliance on key infrastructure within a specific region (cyber and physical, DON-owned or commercially owned). In 2003, the Department conducted regional NIVAs in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii, to identify vulnerabilities and assist local commanders in developing appropriate remediation strategies.  Applying assessment best practices enables immediate incorporation of specific recommendations and coordination of regional emergency activities.  Identifying commercial dependencies and working with local and state governments promotes understanding and coordination, reduces duplication of investment and provides better continuity in emergent situations. We will press forward with our program for this critical work while continuing to coordinate and exchange information with corresponding Federal and state agencies.

STRONG INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE

We have taken a number of steps to both strengthen IT governance and put into place the necessary tools to do effective investment management.  Our improved IM/IT governance structure has strengthened, aligned, and integrated our IM/IT efforts across the Navy and Marine Corps, ensuring Department-wide alignment of IM/IT efforts with warfighter priorities.  The designation of Deputy CIOs for the Navy and Marine Corps has been particularly helpful, aligning both IT policy and execution, and CIO and C4 responsibilities.  Similarly, reporting relationships between Echelon II command Information Officers and the Deputy CIOs has helped to ensure that command IT initiatives stay aligned with the Department's IT vision and architecture.

The Navy Sea Enterprise Board of Directors, the Marine Corps' Information Technology Steering Group and the Department's FAM Council embody the senior level leadership exercising effective oversight and management of IT investments.  We have put into place several other innovative processes to ensure the alignment of IT investment decisions.  Our IT investment priorities are now incorporated into programming guidance for the POM, and in budget execution and acquisition guidance.  Together, these controls leverage comptroller and contracting personnel across the Department to monitor and ensure prudent IT investment decisions are executed.  Further governance is achieved through our review of IT programs for compliance with Clinger-Cohen Act requirements and certification for network standards.  The Net-Centric Enterprise Services checklist has provided an additional tool for assessment of our programs' compliance with GIG interoperability requirements.  All of these efforts have helped to focus our budget requests on transformational activities.  We are at a critical phase in our transformation process, and the IT funding in our FY 05 budget is crucial to ensure that we can deliver the information dominance advantage that we have begun to build for our warfighters.

The Navy - Marine Corps team has made significant progress in achieving the transformational net-centric capabilities demanded by our defense strategy and today's operational environment.  Cumbersome legacy systems of the past are being replaced with re-engineered web-based solutions.  Industry standards and the use of commercial-off-the shelf technology have replaced the government-developed solutions of the past.  We are re-engineering our business processes to leverage technology to deliver warfighting capability more effectively.  Smart buying practices are in place, and senior Navy and Marine Corps leaders are actively engaged in IT investment management.  These efforts are integrated with the rest of the Department of Defense and will ensure the interoperability necessary to provide our contribution to the GIG, the Defense Business Management Modernization Program and the Federal Enterprise Architecture.  The DoD IT governance team is working closely together to deliver the vision of net-centric warfare and knowledge dominance.  We have made great strides thus far, and I am confident that we have the leadership, guidance and processes in place to carry us the rest of the way.  The opportunities for the Department and the Nation are tremendous.

Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, I thank you again for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you today.  We greatly appreciate your support of our information technology initiatives to meet the challenges we face and I look forward to working with you on these important initiatives.  I am happy to answer any questions that you may have about the Department of the Navy's information management/information technology initiatives.

---