An Exploratory Study of the Air Force's Technical IT Infrastructure Flexibility

The Air Force presently spends more than $4.9 billion annually on information technology (IT). However, the IT infrastructure has been identified as inappropriate for supporting the Air Force mission. To improve this situation the Air Force has identified infrastructure flexibility as key to future success. This led to the thesis question: What is the Air Force's current level of IT infrastructure flexibility? This thesis looked at two constructs that indicate IT infrastructure flexibility- modularity and integration. A survey was sent to communication, computer, and information career field members to measure the degree of modularity and integration. Based on respondents' views, the Air Force's IT infrastructure does have some areas of flexibility, but other areas indicate very low flexibility. A primary concern is the flexibility of the Air Force's data and applications. Responses to both data flexibility and application flexibility survey questions consistently indicated low flexibility. The responses suggest the Air Force could achieve greater flexibility by turning its attention to database issues such as variety and adaptability of database protocols. Communications and platform flexibility are partially supported. Results indicate that reducing communication bottlenecks and fewer steps for accessing data from external end user locations could enable greater flexibility. Senior and junior IT leaders only diverged on one area of flexibility. Senior leaders had a higher rating on the number of entry points or interfaces available to external end users.

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