Joint Service Provider pandemic preparations spark long-term changes at Pentagon

by Jennifer Singleton
Office of Strategic Communication and Public Affairs
November 22, 2021

The infrastructure and configuration changes DISA Joint Service Provider (JSP) centers made to accommodate the maximum telework environment continue to meet the capabilities requirement for its mission partners at the Pentagon.
DISA JSP operates and defends the Department of Defense headquarters’ key cyber terrain and provides information technology services to more than 55,000 mission partners in the Pentagon and national capital region. 

This responsibility became more critical when Pentagon personnel began to work from home more than a year ago. DISA JSP centers like the Enterprise Services Center quickly implemented a redesign of JSP’s Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) capacity systems and the enterprise conference bridge to uphold DOD’s security and service delivery standards for JSP employees and customers in the teleworking environment.

Improved VoIP functions enabled connections between the Pentagon and those working from home. To make VoIP more efficient as teleworking employees made the adjustment, the team stacked cables and gateways, limiting work-hour service impacts, to double the service desk’s ability to handle the increased volume of incoming calls.

“As the work force flow shifted from an inside-the building-to-out to an outside-the-building-in, some teleworkers struggled to get the internet and VPNs setup in their home offices,” said John Coyle, DISA’s JSP Pentagon Voice Operations chief. “The buildout allowed multiple service desks and their agents, to be hosted and run off of JSP’s infrastructure to handle the increases in calls, returning employees to their mission.”

The Pentagon relied heavily on T1 connections to carry voice service which were quickly overwhelmed by the amount of calls attempting to enter the building at once. To carry VoIP, the team quickly transitioned to DISA and Verizon Session Initiation Protocol trunks, both of which have higher capacity limits.

JSP team members moved every telephone number associated with the conference bridge to cloud-based IP trunks, bringing the number of blocked/busy calls a day down from 300,000 to only dozens.

The Enterprise Services Center rebuilt every piece of hardware and cable across the voice enterprise, which increased conference bridge capacity from 660 simultaneous users pre-pandemic to 4,000, all while processing millions of calls a month.
To facilitate the migration to Office 365 with many employees still at home, DISA JSP’s Computing and Applications team performed script development actions, capability testing and the implementation of critical prerequisites necessary for the successful migration. This enabled DISA JSP’s customer base to leverage Microsoft Cloud Based solutions such as OneDrive, Microsoft Teams and future MS Office products and capabilities. 

DISA JSP’s efforts reinforced its core services during the pandemic and continued to connect customers in a growing collaborative environment that will remain in place as DOD employees continue teleworking, return to the office or work in a hybrid environment.

“JSP stands on the forefront of innovation which gives the Department of Defense the ability to plan for the challenges of the future,” said Coyle. “The dedication to problem solving embodies JSP’s goal of enabling every mission. JSP understands that during an emergency, it’s time to do whatever the warfighter needs.”