PM DCATS speaks about Army IT modernization on AUSA panel

Col. Enrique Costas, project manager for Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems (DCATS), spoke on the panel for “Army IT modernization” at the 2019 Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual meeting in Washington, D.C., October 13, 2019.

“The Army is doing a lot more,” Costas said. “Not only are we keeping with the investment strategy of using procurement dollars to replace old, aging, end of life, telephony, data infrastructure, SIPR or NIPR, Classified or Unclassified data ground transport, but also WGS [Wideband Global SATCOM].”

“Now, we are at a point of percussion in which we want to leverage all the innovation that is happening in industry, from software defined networks, from passive optical networks, from big data analytics, artificial intelligence, cloud computing to ensure that … we can transport that data more efficiently, more assured, more secured from the infrastructure of the campus all the way down to the foxhole,” Costas said.

In addition to industry’s innovations, Costas said the enterprise IT as a service (EITaaS) pilot helps the Army understand the advances that industry is making, “which inform the Army, to refine requirements and then make decisions on investments that provide a more blended approach. … We can leverage all these advancements from industry and apply them to the enterprise, regardless if we are at the campus or forward at the foxhole, then help to unify the network.”