Planned FY 2018 DISA Technology Investments - Part 2 Cyber Security

Following up last week’s overview of the Procurement and Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) dollars that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) intends to invest in various technology projects in fiscal Year 2018, this week’s post takes a look at projected spending on cyber security.

As a reminder, Deltek conducted this analysis of DISA’s FY 2018 Procurement and RDT&E budget documentation using keywords and terms related to cyber security and information assurance. Limitations in the available data did not always allow Deltek isolate cyber programs, so the numbers here also reflect projected spending on programs that have cyber requirements as significant part of a larger effort.

FY 2016-2018 Overview

Expanding on the data presented last week, the chart below provides an overview of the combined Procurement and RDT&E spending that DISA is requesting for programs with a cyber-related requirement in FY 2018.

DISA expects its cyber-related Procurement funding to rise 14.8% in FY 2018 while it’s cyber-related RDT&E funding will rise 9%. Procurement funding also makes up 72% of the $302M that DISA projects it will spend on cyber-related requirements in FY 2018. The number of Procurement dollars DISA dedicates to cyber has risen annually since FY 2016, reflecting the fact that it is a top priority area for the agency.

Program Details

Moving now to the program details, the table below lists all of the DISA programs with a cyber-related requirement identified by Deltek.

At $188.5M in projected FY 2018 Procurement funding, the implementation of Joint Regional Security Stacks (JRSS) is clearly DISA’s number one near-term priority. This is followed by Procurement funding of $25M for the Information Systems Security Program. The ISSP “focuses on delivering enterprise solutions to Combatant Commands, Services, and Defense-wide agencies to ensure critical mission execution in the face of cyber-attacks.” In FY 2018, ISSP investments will be for information technology hardware and software (services could not be split out) related to the following programs:

• Defense Information Systems Network (DISN) Cyber Technology Refresh – $14.7M
• Database Security Gateway Tool (DMZ) – $3.6M
• Enterprise Collaborative Operational Sensors (ECOS) – $1.2M
• Cross Domain Enterprise Services (CDES) –  $1.7M
• Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) – $1.9M
• Endpoint Security Modernization – $1.2M
• Cyber Security Range – $491K

Concerning RDT&E priorities, the C4I Interoperability program will receive the highest funding of $52M. These investments will be made under the Major Range Test Facility Base Operations Improvements and Operations budget line, including expanding the Joint Interoperability Test Command’s use of cloud technologies at the DISA IT Test Infrastructure Standardized Testbed at Fort Meade, maintaining the technical workforce, supporting base operations, communications, and operating expenses. In addition, “the increase of +$1.9M from FY 2017 to FY 2018 will adapt additional cloud technologies through rapid re-configurations, resulting in the development of a single DoDIN Lab Test-Bed.”

As for Defense Information Infrastructure Engineering and Integration, FY 2018 RDT&E funding will support “modeling and simulation tools to analyze planned changes to the DISN optical and IP core network, data centers, internet, and commercial cloud computing gateways, and network security solutions, including the development of capabilities for analysis of software defined networking.”

Wrapping up, growth in DISA’s spending on cyber reflects its important role as the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Networks, or JFHQ-DoDIN, which continues to mature as the DoD’s premier defensive cyber organization.