A LOOK BACK, AND AHEAD
Gary L. Winkler, an Army civilian for 23 years culminating in 3½ years as the leader of PEO EIS, saw dramatic changes in his career, and wished some other changes had been more dramatic than they were.
Army AL&T Magazine on April 27, in his last week as PEO, to share his perspectives on where the Army stands in today’s com- puting environment and in the ongoing efforts to do more without more while building a robust Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Workforce.
W
PEO EIS’ mission is to design, develop, integrate, test, and field new network- based capabilities by leveraging commer- cial hardware and software solutions in finance, logistics, personnel, communica- tions infrastructure, biometrics, medical, and warfighting functions.
PEO EIS typically is the “first in” to a the- ater of operations, to set up IT systems before troops arrive. Its portfolio is broad and diverse. Most of its large-scale systems support the generating force, although some of its systems, such as DOD Bio- metrics and Medical Communications for
inkler, who stepped down at the end of April to join the private sector, sat down with
Combat Casualty Care, support the oper- ating force.
Winkler has seen DOD budgets wax and wane, and grappled with how best to make programs more efficient while ensuring top-notch service to the warfighter.
AN IT TRANSFORMATION
“It’s been amazing to be part of the Army and DOD transformation to a net-centric, knowledge-based force,” Winkler said.
“Earlier in my career, there were only mainframes and punch cards, and then we moved into the PC and workstation environment. Then it was client-server applications, which only worked for local networks. Now we have global enterprise systems that are web-based, and most sys- tems are accessible through ‘the cloud.’ Cloud computing is now in play as the next evolution of server consolidation.”
Over the next three to five years, the Army and DOD will be challenged to get applications into secure cloud
THERE ARE ALWAYS EFFICIENCIES TO BE GAINED WHEN PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO BE CREATIVE, AND I’M CONFIDENT THE PEO AND PMS WILL RISE TO
THE CHALLENGE.” 44 Army AL&T Magazine
computing environments where they can function on smartphones and tablets, Winkler said.
“Without a doubt, network and informa- tion security will be the biggest challenge as we move to integrate commercial data centers, aka cloud environments, and commercial software-as-a-service into our operations and capabilities.”
Software-as-a-service is a rapidly growing sector in private industry, taking busi- ness functions that can easily be treated as commodities—such as email, calen- dars, contacts, and tasks—and leveraging massive economies of scale to lower costs while meeting capability requirements.
“There is not much risk in buying such capabilities this way,” Winkler said, although there is risk with complex func- tions and capabilities, which are not appropriate for outsourcing to software- as-a-service vendors.
MANAGING RISK
“I had hoped to be able to move the Army forward a little faster in the mobile smart- phone area,” Winkler said in reviewing his tenure as PEO. “We have [security] solutions in place, but the processes to get those solutions approved are cumbersome and time-consuming, as always with any- thing new.”
The Army and DOD are behind the curve in addressing security concerns with commercial technology, Winkler said. “It’s not that there is necessarily a huge security risk or vulnerability with commercial technology, but rather we need to develop policies and processes to assess and manage risk.”
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