WASHINGTON (June 6, 2013) -- As part of IT management reform, Secretary of the Army John McHugh recently signed a memo to transition Army Knowledge Online to next-generation enterprise services. Changes will occur over several years.
"To achieve the anticipated financial economies, efficiencies, and security improvements, the Army must modernize current Army Knowledge Online infrastructure and services to become more interoperable across DOD and compliant with emerging joint information environment architectures; and implement current best practices for cloud-based managed services," McHugh wrote in the memo.
The transition follows the Army's successful migration of 1.4 million email accounts to DOD Enterprise Email. That full transition will be complete in July.
"The Army is moving towards enterprise services for collaboration, content management, and unified capabilities (including chat, presence, voice and video over IP) -- all drawing upon the authoritative identity service that underpins Enterprise Email," said Mike Krieger, deputy, Chief Information Office/G-6.
The Army is developing a transition timeline for AKO services and accounts -- to include military and civilian retirees and Army family members. Details will be published by September in an Army execution order.
All Army business processes will move off the current AKO platform onto next-generation enterprise services over the course of several years. Only business users will have access to enterprise services.
"The Army retains a responsibility and a mission requirement to remain virtually connected to all of our military retirees," said McHugh. The AKO transition EXORD will include how the Army will remain connected with military retirees and families.
Army military retirees and family members will continue to have access to DOD online self-service sites like Tricare and MyPay through DOD Self-Service Logon.
Army retiree and family AKO email accounts will become inactive by mid-2014. Unlike when AKO began, email and other AKO features are now available commercially and at no cost to the public. Today, less than ten percent of the 412,000 Army retirees and family members use AKO email.
In the near future, the Army will publish a website with information about changes, resources for assistance, and answers to frequently asked questions.
Related Documents:
Secretary of the Army Memo on AKO Transition [PDF]
Related Links:
DKO goes offline, AKO to transition over years
DoD Self-Service Logon to enable access to online DOD self-service sites
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