DISA Celebrates New Watch Floor with Ribbon Cutting

Suzan Holl
Office of Strategic Communication and Public Affairs

Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert J. Skinner, left, Defense Information Systems Agency director and commander of the Joint Force Headquarters - Department of Defense Information Network, U.S. Navy Capt. Rick Larson DISA Joint Operations Center director, center, and Joseph Wassel, DISA Cyberspace Operations director officially recognize the upgraded
DISA Joint Operations Center Watch Floor at a ribbon-cutting ceremony July 8. 
Photo by Eric Glisson, DISA Visual Information Services.

The Defense Information Systems Agency celebrated the completion of an 18-month upgrade to the agency’s Joint Operations Center Watch Floor with a ribbon-cutting ceremony July 8.

The $1.2 million dollar upgrade aims to drive data, improve mechanical and electrical infrastructure along with architectural and technology-based renovations that will help the agency meet all present and future mission requirements.

DISA Cyberspace Operations director, Joseph Wassel, who commissioned the upgrade of the watch floor, reflected on his own impressions of the changes.

"This is the center of gravity and rally point for information sharing. This is where truth starts when there are fewer answers than questions,” said Wassel. “We must be about prevention. What does incident prevention look like? It looks like this [watch floor]. It looks like teamwork.”

DISA Joint Operations Center director, U.S. Navy Capt. Rick Larson said the upgrade was a much needed improvement.

“Before the upgrade watch standers were using monitors that were more than 10 years old, several of which no longer worked. Now they have new, large screen desktop monitors that enable them to better handle multiple issues simultaneously,” said Larson. “There are also 11 large screen display monitors to help the battle captain and other watch standers maintain Joint Operations Situation Awareness of the DISA area of operations.”

Larson said the physical upgrade to the watch floor is just part of the story.

The old watch floor was designed and laid out to support the old DISA Command Center, or DCC, which focused on the Defense Information Systems Network and key DISA applications. 

“The DISN consists of the thousands of miles of fiber, cable and wireless connections that provide long-haul communications transport for the DoD. With the stand-up of the DISA Joint Operations Center, the focus now includes defensive cyberspace operations to protect our information systems and applications,” he said.

Larson added that unlike the previous DCC, the new watch floor display layout will be regularly evaluated to determine “what else do we need” to ensure the most relevant and needed information is available to achieve unity of effort across the different watch centers throughout the agency “with the purpose of increasing our velocity of action in support of the warfighters in harm’s way.” 

The new watch floor enhances workspace functionality with increased occupancy, file and locker storage; includes updated audiovisual and computer technology including modern monitors and a video wall system that enables touch screen interaction; and extends the life of this technology investment with virtual desktop infrastructure systems.

The watch floor mission is to execute command and control authority to operate, secure and defend the DISA portion of the DoD Information Network; gain and maintain joint operations situational awareness; and collect, aggregate and disseminate to senior leadership the status of the DISA Enterprise, to get after Wassel's tenants of "know sooner, understand impact and surge to fix," with the ultimate goal of "prevention."

 “This can’t be the DCC of the past. The mission has changed. The things that we have to do have changed. What do we need to know sooner, understand impact and surge to fix?” said Larson.

“Command and control is at the heart of mission success – end of discussion,” said DISA director, Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert J. Skinner in his closing remarks.

“But it is people who coordinate and drive mission success. It’s up to you to make sure that we are better tomorrow than we are today. Take this as the next step in maturation,” said Skinner.

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Published July 20, 2021