Posted on 09/02/2023 4:15:27 AM PDT by FarCenter
When it comes to US government employee satisfaction with IT services, one agency finds itself continually at the bottom of the heap: The rather crucial Department of Defense.
Results from the General Services Administration's (GSA) Mission-Support Customer Satisfaction Survey published on Wednesday found the DoD was trailing the other 23 US federal government agencies included in the research. Of the seven technology user areas surveyed, the DoD came dead last in user satisfaction for IT support, equipment, function, and communication/collaboration.
The DoD didn't fare much better in the three areas it wasn't scraping the bottom, either. For strategic IT partnerships and development, modernizations and enhancement the Defense Department ranked twentieth (out of 24), and for operations and maintenance satisfaction it beat the US Department of Agriculture - barely - on the seven-point scale used by the GSA.
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.com ...
It’s best to turn off “live update” before going into combat.
A comment from 1994. I arrived at a Air Base (Germany), and we had everything set-up IT-wise, and it was 4-star efforts (even training). We had a improvement plan set and advancing.
One day, we had some VIP arrive from the Pentagon and a discussion started up. For his shop in the Pentagon, they were at least five years away from having the same landscape/capability.
On the DoD Navy side ever since NMCI was introduced in 2000 the computers, software and IT was useless. You spent more time getting systems to work then actually doing work.
IT was nothing more than idiots with a cheat they read from that nothing to do with the problems you had. They’re solution to everything was “Did you reboot?”
Of course. These are run by contractors. The point is not service but money into private hands . It’s just like aid to Ukraine . It’s supposed to be corrupt. That’s the whole of the operation.
The USN/USMC and USAF are both in the midst of a serious overhaul of IT and how it’s owned and operated.
SEVERAL things to understand:
The DoD publicly acknowledged the problem via released draft RFPs and a series of RPPs for IT upgrades, with an emphasis on wireless. Agility, mobility and resilience are key KPIs *along with the customer experience.*
The USAF in their draft RFP went as far as stating “wireless connectivity... SHALL be the predominant and preferred” access methodology. They are of course going to use wired networks but the “agile combat” requirement demands wireless. This implies satellite from LEO to GEO, 5G and wi-fi, and fiber in/on the ground. It’ll take em three years but it’s in progress ... except for the Army. They are still in committees.
Also with certain exceptions the DoD is leaving goverment-owned, government-operated behind and running towards contractor-owned, contractor-operated, with 10 year period of performance awards. The DoD wants to be as agile and up to date as US enterprise is. Or better.
The ‘stuff’ happening in SOCCOM/JSOC would make you proud, actually.
H/t to the Army for letting civilian fiber onto bases for housing (over 90% take rates) and then layering DoD SIPR and NIPR networks on top of that build out.
This article isn’t wrong. It just doesn’t give you the looming upside.
PS- the War fighter side of the DoD IS moving fast to modernize, and none of the infrastructure is at risk of having chicom chips or software in the mix. What the Navy is doing with 5G at sea is mind blowing. The civilian and support IT is awaiting large awards and contracts.
To your point NIWC in Hawaii is piloting the use of 5G fixed wireless access from the 3 major carriers because NMCI is SO bad. No NIPR traffic, but 90% of their NIWC data was NIPR... so why not go with commercial options.
2+ gigabit per second, per endpoint ( high frequency 5G, not the old LTE bands ) that NMCI could never deliver.
ANY government website sucks. Any and all. They’ve got the lowest level hacks programming them, and they’re overseen by the most incompetent non-technological bureaucrats that don’t understand how anything works.
True dat. ALL govie help desks are inappropriately named.
RLTW
They put the S-H in I-T.
We call it the Unhelpful Desk.
It appears there is something wrong with the Pentagon. Screwupedness seems to permeate every wing. Perhaps it is now too big and needs to be greatly reduced in size. Maybe we need a blue ribbon committee, and I mean Blue Ribbon, to investigate and make honest recommendations.
The government, and military, is in grave danger of losing the war due to the incompetence in the IT field. It's one of the reasons (amongst many others) of why I retired, and I know many others who retired for the same reason. Why come into a shop when you spend 4-6 fighting to get your IT system running and never get anything done?
Grace Hopper would be rolling over in her grave.
The Pentagon operation is too big, fat and sloppy and in needs to be streamlined.
They should adopt the motto, “lean and mean.”
Don’t get me started.
Pentagon is just trying to keep up with Sniffer.
IRS
“Is it plugged in? Is the printer out of paper? “
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