US Department of Defense Information Assurance: Achieving Successful DITSCAP with eZ publish as a Platform

System Background

The DASN (ACQ) One Source ( www.acquisition.navy.mil) website was successfully launched in November of 2003 and is considered the authoritative acquisition policy resource for the Department of the Navy Acquisition workforce.

For nearly three years, the DASN (ACQ) One Source website had resided on the Department of the Navy Headquarters' Network (DNHN). However, due to planned server room renovations and the impending deadline of the DNHN to become decommissioned, the DASN (ACQ) One Source was relocated to another server room within the Pentagon and moved off of the Navy network and on to a network operated and maintained by the Army.

The Army network is the Unclassified but Sensitive Internet Protocol Router Network (formerly called the "Non-secure Internet Protocol Router Network"), and is hosted by the United States Army Information Technology Agency (USAITA).

In addition to logistical planning for these events, the DASN (ACQ) One Source website needed to comply with Department of Defense Information Assurance policies and regulations. Prior to attaining an Approval to Connect (ATC) to the Army network, the DASN (ACQ) One Source website had to go through the DITSCAP process. An approved System Security Authorization Agreement (SSAA) was necessary to continue operations.

After the SSAA was signed and accepted, the DASN (ACQ) One Source system was granted an Authority to Operate (ATO), valid for a period of three years. Based on being granted an ATO, the USAITA also granted an Approval To Connect (ATC), valid for a period of one year. This will need to be renewed annually in order to be allowed to connect to the Pentagon's network infrastructure (NIPRNet).

DASN (ACQ) One Source system platform

The DASN (ACQ) One Source website utilizes Norwegian-based eZ Systems' eZ publish software, which provides a framework for content management, sharing and role-based business rules that control the addition and modification of site content. The system operates on an open-source platform utilizing an Apache web server and accesses a MySQL database. The site is based on the PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) language, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), and JavaScript,

The actual technology specifications that support the DASN (ACQ) One Source website can be obtained from the author of the article.