FLC | DoD fast-tracks IT updates to facilitate telework due to COVID-19

DoD fast-tracks IT updates to facilitate telework due to COVID-19

April 17, 2020

Before the new coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Navy regularly had 100,000 remote users on its network. Now, as millions of Americans work from home, the Navy has expanded its network to 250,000 users and plans to increase that amount to 500,000 in two to three weeks.

The Navy’s change is part of a broader movement at the Pentagon as the Department of Defense has rolled out over 900,000 user accounts for a new remote work environment in April. That includes creating as many as 250,000 accounts in one day last week. IT projects that once took years, may now take just days or weeks, officials said.

The effort is funded in part by $300 million from the most recent coronavirus relief package signed by President Donald Trump. For the Department of Defense and the military services, the pandemic has meant rapidly increasing network capacity, improving cybersecurity and expanding IT programs to ensure missions across the globe can continue uninterrupted.

“The speed and magnitude of what the department has implemented in such a short amount of time is truly extraordinary," Dana Deasy, the Pentagon’s top IT official, said April 13 during a press conference.

With more than 4 million military and civilian employees teleworking across the globe, preparing the DoD enterprise for telework was a massive undertaking, said Lt. Gen. Bradford Shwedo, the chief information officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Each of the services worked closely with the Defense Department CIO’s office to prepare for a telework increase for its employees and servicemen.

In March, the CIO’s office released do’s and don’ts of telework, as did Navy Personnel Command. Cmdr. Dave Benham, spokesperson for Fleet Cyber Command, said the Navy is improving capacity to ease the stress on networks and service help desks.

“The highest levels of the Navy’s operational leadership are being updated daily on network and Service Desk performance and efforts to improve telecommuter user effectiveness,” Benham said in a statement March 31. “We have gained many important insights during the past two weeks of large-scale telework, and we are moving rapidly to increase capacity, while maintaining network security.”

In addition, the Air Force successfully deployed additional telework capacity, capability and bandwidth to support telework, according to Air Force spokesperson Lt. Col. Bryan Lewis. Lewis told C4ISRNET that the Air Force implemented its large-scale End User Remote Access Management, or EURAM, virtual private network connections, which he described as a “monumental accomplishment.” Shwedo said that before the pandemic, the Air Force’s VPN could accommodate 10,000 users. But Lewis said EURAM — the modern VPN replacement — can scale to 400,000 concurrent connections. Deasy also said the Air Force upgraded 12 key infrastructure sites, which increased its bandwidth by more than 130%.

The Army also significantly increased its telework capabilities. According to Shwedo, the service has roughly 800,000 telework employees on DoD networks, and “the overall demands there are [increasing] daily." Improvements by the Army led to a 400% increase in network access for data and voice capacity, Deasy said. Army Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford, the Army CIO/G-6, told C4ISRNET in a statement that the service rolled out collaboration tools and improved internet connection, along with teleconferencing capacity.

With more users traversing the network, however, cybersecurity risks increase, which service officials said they take seriously.

“We have disseminated clear guidance that the same discipline, awareness, and security measures required for on-site work must be observed by our personnel when working remotely, and additionally, have provided information and guidance on new emerging threats,” Crawford said in a statement.