Posted by on Mar 29, 2013 in Blog | 0 comments

Department of Defense announced that its Enterprise Email system reached one million users when a soldier at Fort Riley, Kansas received a new email account. This milestone makes the DOD Enterprise Email (DEE) one of the largest independent email systems in the world. Responsibility for DEE belongs to the Defense Information Systems Agency headquartered here. DISA provides the information technology and communications services for DOD.

“For the war-fighters, using DEE means wherever they are, they can use their email, whenever they need it,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronnie Hawkins, Director of DISA. “It is not necessary to start a new email account when you move or deploy. It is as mobile as the service member. DEE also supports DoD’s adoption of the Joint Information Environment, as it enables seamless collaboration among the services.”

The Army is in the final phase of its migration to DEE, and has transferred 967,000 user accounts to date, according to the Army Deputy Chief Information Officer/G-6 Mike Krieger. And currently, DEE is the email service for the Joint Staff, EUCOM, AFRICOM, Army and DISA. New organizations are migrating to DEE with the system expected to reach 1.5 million users by late summer.

The DEE system is designed to save millions of dollars for the department by consolidating system hardware requirements and maintenance, and eliminating unnecessary and inefficient administration and resource allocation. DOD Enterprise Email also provides joint capabilities that are not available in service-unique or organization-specific email systems, such as being able to access the DOD Global Address List (GAL). All Common Access Card holders along with their professional contact information are automatically entered into the GAL and users can update and maintain their information using MilConnect.

According to Kevin Sullivan, Information Technology Director for Navy Recruiting Command, which migrated to DEE in October, recruiters are pleased with the change. “We use DISA Enterprise Email to supplement NMCI email for our recruiters using the mobile recruiting initiative (MRI) seats,” said Sullivan. “This is not only the most cost-effective solution, it also provides our recruiters the flexibility they need in a mobile, dynamic environment.”

Additionally, because the system needs to be able to handle so many users, DEE has been designed in such a way as to prevent the type of failure that would take down the whole system. “DEE incorporates built-in redundancies and support to prevent system-wide outages,” said Alfred Rivera, DISA principal director of enterprise services. “DISA maintains absolute command and control of all enterprise email infrastructure assets. We want our war-fighters to know that they have the most reliable email system available. We’ve got their back. We are providing them with the key IT and communication tools they need to conduct their day-to-day mission.”

“Mobility is another important advantage of DEE,” added John Hale, DISA chief of the enterprise applications office. “Our BlackBerry infrastructure is one of the largest in the world with more than 80,000 users. And DEE is accessible on multiple Smartphones and tablets through the DOD Mobility pilot.”

 

CLO Inside Track: The one million-user milestone is an important one for DoD’s consolidated private-cloud platform.  Even more significantly, DoD expects to bring up the next half-million users by this summer, illustrating the accelerated pace of migration.  The DoD initiative illustrates the amazing economies of scale migrating to cloud-delivered applications like this one can deliver – particularly when compared to older, silo-based departmental systems.  The U.S. Army alone is saving $70 million a year with the cloud-delivered email – that’s hardly chump change in the era of sequestration and massive Pentagon cuts.

 

(For additional information contact: DoD, 703-697-5131, www.defense.gov; DISA, www.disa.mil/Contact.)