Defense gets a new GIG

The Defense Department is merging its troubled Business Systems Modernization effort with its Global Information Grid architecture project.

The department needs to reduce confusion and ensure compliance with standards, said John Osterholz, the Defense Department's director of architectures and interoperability in the office of the chief information officer.

The goal is to make sure defense employees understand GIG is the only architecture, and all other architecture efforts must mesh with the GIG blueprint, he said.

"We have to make sure we have one set of compliance standards; otherwise it will decrease the success of the architecture," Osterholz said. "The business system architecture always was subordinate to GIG, but we wanted a more seamless connection between the business and the warfighting systems. We wanted to elevate it into the GIG architecture directly."