ITA History

ITA has been providing support to customers in the National Capital Region (NCR) since 1995. With the signing of Department of Defense (DoD) Directive 8220.1 in 1995, the Deputy Secretary of Defense John P. White charged the Secretary of the Army Togo D. West, Jr. with responsibility for establishing a Single Agency Manager (SAM) to provide Pentagon Information Technology Services for the National Defense community.

The goal of the SAM was to be a customer-focused utility that provided, managed, operated, and maintained information technology services for the Pentagon and select agencies and organizations in the NCR. As stated in the DoD policy, the SAM was to be the central source for IT services, and therefore, eliminated the requirement for each DoD component to establish, operate, and maintain duplicative technologies. The policy also directed the SAM to explicitly manage costs, as the directive outlined the responsibility to operate as a business, and continually evaluate new commercial alternatives to find cost savings. Since the inception of the SAM, several organizational changes and major events have impacted its course. The organization’s name was changed to its current name, United States Army Information Technology Agency, in 2003. In addition to the name change, ITA evolved from a field operating agency under the operational control of the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army (OAA) where it remains today.

Since its inception in 1995, ITA has continued to transform to meet the growing needs of its customers and changing technology. One impetus of change has been the ongoing renovation of the Pentagon and its IT infrastructure. The Pentagon Renovation Program (PENREN) is charged with overseeing the 14-year, multi-phase renovation and construction project. Working jointly with PENREN, ITA is implementing a new IT infrastructure along with state-of-the-art storage and data processing services at the Pentagon. The new infrastructure modernizes, integrates, and consolidates many of the older, duplicative systems, capabilities, and facilities previously operated and maintained by separate organizations. Additionally, the updated storage and data processing services provide higher levels of capacity, performance and reliability through virtualization and replication.

Major national events have also compelled ITA to transform. The September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon demonstrated that in order to survive, IT systems needed to be redundant and data had to be easily relocated. To achieve a survivable architecture, the new Pentagon infrastructure includes a state-of-the-art telecommunications network, Pentagon Primary Technical Control Facility (PPTCF), Alternate TCF, and centralized Network Systems Management Center (NSMC). Riding on top of this new infrastructure are redundant, switched storage networks and high density virtualization platforms supported by a redundant Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) architecture. With the renovation, ITA works with PENREN to redesign and construct a new Pentagon infrastructure and services while ensuring continuity of excellent service to ITA’s customers.

Today, just as in 1995, ITA’s goal is to strengthen the relationship between ITA and its customers and improve the efficiency of service delivery. ITA’s informed and dedicated team works hard 24/7 to deliver cutting edge IT service offerings and secure, reliable service for our customers.