At the annual Air Force Information Technology & Cyberpower (AFITC) Education and Training event in late August 2019, a key theme for U.S. Air Force (USAF) leadership was the need for a Digital Air Force to enable the future of multi-domain warfighting operations.
For the Air Force to continue to compete, deter and win in the modern age, Air Force Acting Secretary Matthew Donovan announced the Digital Air Force Initiative in a July whitepaper. This initiative endeavors to fundamentally transform IT infrastructure, better harness the power of data and decision-making capability and adopt more agile business practices to finally get to the long envisioned netcentric operations concept.
The commitment to innovation and synergizing IT reform efforts was on full display at AFITC. The message was clear from all the senior USAF leaders on stage, but also across the industry partners showcasing the latest ideas, technologies and solutions to help drive the Air Force along its journey to becoming a truly interconnected, integrated, digital force.
Air Force Deputy CIO Bill Marion pointed out the Air Force has always been superb at buying “trucks,” but has neglected the “highway” those vehicles travel upon. The world’s greatest AF undoubtedly has the best next generation aircraft, spacecraft and combat platforms, but the network highway for all the critical data is too narrow, slow, congested, heavily contested and severely cratered.
To take on this challenge, the Air Force’s best and brightest Airmen, along with their trusted private sector partners will need to plan and aggressively leverage next-generation commercial solutions to generate a decisive information advantage. For the IT infrastructure transformation aspect, the Air Force has three ongoing Enterprise IT-as-a-Service lines of effort risk reduction experiments involving several bases.
More than that, there is a renewed keen focus on the Airmen’s user experience. Perhaps due to a number of reasons, including budget constraints, past leadership decisions, etc., that has atrophied and must be brought back up to speed. With over 30 years of experience serving U.S. military IT needs and shepherding modernization journeys, Iron Bow understands these challenges and opportunities to fully enable the digital Airman.
Iron Bow brings top talent with significant engineering skills and certifications, DoD/Air Force veterans, as well as long standing leading IT manufacturer partnerships to this fight. We are committed with our latest flexible and targeted solutions, including our Commercial Solutions for Classified capability, IronTarget™ cloud reference architecture and Hosted Collaboration Services for Defense to more quickly achieve the Digital Air Force of the future, today. Please check out more information on our website.
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