Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert J. Skinner, director of Defense Information Systems Agency, testifies before a House Armed Services Subcommittee in Washington, D.C. March 22, 2024. (DoD photo by EJ Hersom)

TECHNET AUGUSTA 2024 — The Defense Information Systems Agency is preparing to seriously ramp up its effort to enlist the DoD workforce in its DODNET program as it aims to onboard tens of thousands of users in coming months, the agency’s director said today. 

“We are hitting the accelerator come October to bring nearly 100,000 users onto DODNET within a six- to nine-month period,”  DISA Director Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, said during a keynote address here this afternoon. “We’re going to collapse a lot of these [defense] agency networks that have been stovepiped and have legacy technology in them.”

DODNET was created as part a of the Defense Enclave Services program, a $11.7 billion cloud computing contract created to modernize defense agencies and help eliminate IT burden. DISA designed DODNET to provide defense agencies and field activities one secure Fourth Estate network that provides all users the same level of security and resiliency.  

The network currently has about 32,000 users, according to DISA’s website, meaning the October ramp up represents the start of a hoped-for 300 percent jump.

DISA is able to add more users to the network as it recently launched a secure cloud environment within DODNET that adds “scalability, interoperability and redundancy to support a growing user base,” as part of DODNET Generation 2, according to a recent DISA press release. 

Skinner said an important benefit of DODNET is getting rid of legacy systems, or outdated systems that hinder agencies from being both secure and conflict-ready. 

“You also got to think about the legacy technology, right, which is a harbinger of things to come if we don’t get off legacy technology,” he said.

Legacy systems can be a danger not just because they put the Pentagon at risk of not being “mission ready,” but because it can also be more difficult to find personnel who know how to work with outdated tech.

Skinner said the culmination of 100,000 users on DODNET should come within six to nine months after the October push, though DISA’s website said the agency hopes to reach that goal in the next 18 months. 

As of now, the agencies using DODNET include those from DISANet, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and the Defense Technical Information Center. The migrated users starting in October will include the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Defense Contract Management Agency and Defense Contract Audit Agency among others, per DISA’s website.