Army plans to create huge enterprise e-mail system
By
Bob Brewin
Contract would consolidate nearly 1 million accounts onto one platform and outsource the program to cut the $400 million the service spends on managing current systems.
Army CIO Lt. Gen. Jeffery Sorenson said the e-mail system could serve the entire Defense Department.
The Army announced on March 5 plans to consolidate its myriad e-mail systems and then outsource its operation in a procurement that the service said will improve effectiveness, enhance security and cut its $400 million-a-year e-mail bill.
In its draft solicitation request, the Army also invited companies bidding on the enterprise e-mail contract to partner with the Defense Information Systems Agency, which operates 13 computer centers worldwide and could house the global e-mail system. The service said it plans to build the entire system on Microsoft Exchange 2010.
Lt. Gen Jeffery Sorenson, the Army's chief information officer, is spearheading the effort, which he first discussed in September 2009. He said he eventually would like to see the entire Defense Department use the system.
Sorenson told the Army LandWarNet Conference in August 2009 that he was working with DISA to develop an e-mail system for all of Defense.
The Army supports 950,000 accounts in what a paper on the enterprise e-mail concept described as 15 server-and-directory forests installed at 300 sites worldwide.
All Army uniformed and civilian personnel are required to have an e-mail address on Army Knowledge Online, which serves as the default Army address, but the current e-mail architecture hobbles communications within the service and other Defense organizations, according to the paper. When a soldier or civilian employee moves from one installation to another, his or her Army Knowledge Online e-mail address has to be deleted from one server and then added at the new installation, the paper noted.
"Currently, e-mail users who must operate across organizational boundaries are hamstrung with multiple user access devices and/or hindered by reduced capabilities when interacting with nonorganizational Army and DoD personnel," the paper said. "Deployed forces must carry extensive support equipment to temporary operating locations or lose connectivity with supporting networks for extended periods of time."
The numerous systems also make the service more vulnerable to cyberattacks because hackers have more points on the network to infiltrate. The Army also said an enterprise e-mail system would reduce costs by eliminating administrative tasks and inefficient network configurations.
Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting, a federal information technology consulting firm, estimated the Army could cut its $400 million operating bill in half by moving to an enterprise system run by a commercial contractor. He declined to speculate on the value of the new contract.
He said the Army's suggestion that bidders partner with DISA was the most intriguing part of the procurement and indicates the agency could compete with industry for the Army's e-mail business. The service said vendors can choose to use commercial facilities, those operated by DISA, or a combination of the two.
Suss said he expects the contract to attract a range of bidders including EDS, now a division of Hewlett-Packard, integrators and large defense contractors such as Computer Sciences Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp., and carriers such as Verizon and Qwest Communications International.
The initial part of the contract will include more than 249,000 e-mail accounts in the United States, or about one quarter of the Army's accounts, and the service expects to migrate them to the enterprise system by September 2011.
Because the Army specified it intends to build the enterprise system on Microsoft Exchange 2010, Suss said, "No matter who bids, Microsoft is the winner."
NEXT STORY: Transparency for Vets