All legacy Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications Systems throughout the Air Force and National Guard are nearly consolidated, reports C4ISRNet. This core migration will cover over 100 individual top-secret communication sites, which make up 38 legacy domains.” JWICSs, which are centrally managed, were owned and operated by individual commands and units,” reports C4ISRNet. The plan is for JWICS to coordinate core services including directory authentication, exchange services, Microsoft Office patch management, file storage, Sharepoint, anti-virus, and other key functions, allowing for a single, unified, centrally managed enterprise.
“The migrations themselves are being done remotely, all from here at [Joint Base San Antonio]-Lackland,†said Michael DiCosimo, contract project manager for Air Force JWICS migration. “But, before we migrate a single user or workstation, there are weeks, and sometimes months, worth of site preparation that must occur in order to ensure mission integrity for the migrating site, and the overall success of the migration.â€
“With all JWICS programs running from a single location, collaboration will be easier and will better ensure the mission needs are met quickly and efficiently,†Melanie Weems, Air Combat Command’s branch chief focused on cyberspace ISR program management. She added that this will free up military personnel and resources for other missions.
The planned centralization will also “enhance processing, exploitation and dissemination, or PED, across the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance enterprise ‘greatly,’ a problem the Air Force has been felled by due to a significant increase in ISR demand as well as sensor overload,” reports C4ISRNet.
Weather or drone missions, or other applications specific to a unit’s mission, will still be locally run by the unit, and not the Air Force JWICS enterprise team in San Antonio, Texas.
All 38 legacy domains have been migrated, the Air Force reported, and Air National Guard sites are being scheduled.
