DCSA moves services to the cloud as part of TW 2.0

QUANTICO, Va. — The Defense Information System for Security will begin moving to a cloud environment this weekend, a step the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency says is part of its National Background Investigation Services “Cloud Smart” strategy and the Pentagon’s broader embrace of commercial cloud services.

The migration will include a planned outage. Users will be notified of timing and duration via the system’s “About” tab. Afterward, officials say there will be no changes to how people log in or navigate, and all components will remain accessible through current URLs, including https://www.dcsa.mil/Systems-Applications/Defense-Information-System-for-Security-DISS.

“These migrations and modernization efforts will offer improved access for federal agencies, enhanced security features and streamlined clearance verification processes,” said Lindley Earl, NBIS Deputy Program Manager. “In addition, it will position DCSA, and agency customers, for the future by reducing costs, improved system/application performance and incorporating the correct data architecture to enable future scalability.”

The agency delayed the deployment earlier this month in response to customer feedback gathered during testing. “Working with our customers in the testing environment over the past couple months revealed implementation issues we needed to resolve before going live,” said Mike Faller, NBIS program management specialist. “We took the extra time to address those concerns, and the final result is a migration effort coming up with very limited impact to our customers. We really appreciate the partnerships and willingness of our customers to participate in the testing environment – their valuable participation and feedback continue to improve product deliveries.”

DCSA said the move is aligned with the Defense Department’s Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, the multi-vendor enterprise cloud effort intended to deliver services across all classification levels. By shifting DISS off on‑premises hardware, the agency expects to tap into DoD cybersecurity tooling, broaden access to data and services, and accelerate retirement of legacy systems.

DISS is the Defense Department’s case management and adjudication system for personnel security and credentialing, used by government and industry security professionals to manage clearance verifications, visit requests and related workflows. DCSA, which assumed responsibility for the government’s background investigations in 2019, has been modernizing its IT stack under NBIS to consolidate and streamline vetting across the federal enterprise.