USAF's Scramble to Telework

摘要

The coronavirus pandemic has shocked global economies, sent nations into lockdown, and overwhelmed hospitals in some of the largest American cities. As the U.S. workforce adjusts to the new reality of working from home, the virus's spread is forcing the IT (information technology) that supports millions of military and civilian personnel to sink or swim. Building on incremental changes that were already in progress, Air Force officials are trying to turn what they call "20th-century IT for a 21st-century service" into an enterprise that keeps their air, cyber, and space missions going uninterrupted. If they succeed, this urgent recognition of IT as a top priority could reverberate far into the future for a better connected, digitally savvy force. As many as 4 million DOD employees are now telework-ing, Air Force Lt. Gen. B.J. Shwedo, the Joint Staff's chief information officer and its director for command, control, communications, computers, and cyber, said April 13. That includes 60 percent of staff at the Pentagon in Virginia, and a significant portion of the Air Force's workforce.