Top Three Questions for the DoD Cloud Journey
DoD is investing heavily in Cloud Migrations, but several unanswered questions exist. The top three questions for me are:
- What about the networks?
- What about the data?
- What Cloud Service Provider (CSP) is the standard?
Having these three questions continue to go unanswered muddies the Warfighter to have a comprehensive approach to having an Information Technology Standard. To understand why it is important to have answers to each question, let’s explore each one individually.
What about the Network?
It goes to the old joke that the Cloud is just someone else computer. Funny but true. To access the Cloud, you have to access it from a network. The next logical step is to question how reliable the network is. Does the network have multiple pathways to access the Cloud? What is the current latency? What is the cost of updating the network to have the necessary customer experience? More important, what is the mission impact when the Cloud is not accessible? Unlike the commercial sector, the Warfighter can not take the day off when the network is down. Part of the concern is the rural military installations that depend on the local Internet Service Providers (ISP), which are highly likely to utilize Huawei telecom equipment as a cost-saving measure for their infrastructure. That is why the U.S. government is stopping the future procurement of Huawei telecom equipment. Before DoD organizations go fully into the Cloud, it is prudent to ensure that we have done our due diligence to ensure redundant communication channels, not utilizing possible compromised networks, while improving the existing ones.
What about the Data?
Clive Humby, a British mathematician and data scientist, stated, “Data is the new oil.” The DoD is doing its best to be able to refine this data into knowledge, which in turn, into action. The challenge with data, similar to oil, is that it takes time to refine data to make it usable. The DoD, as a whole, struggles to have usable data. For years, the Knowledge Management teams were responsible for data refinement by meta-tagging data, establishing file plans, and cultivating SharePoint portals to make data accessible.
Unfortunately, Knowledge Management was perceived by many within the community as a bureaucratic process slowing down the Warfighter. Hence, the data is now not in a format that is usable for more advanced techniques like Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, or Machine Learning struggles to use. Worse, the data is now in the hands of a few individuals with a select understanding of technology without understanding the nuance of the data itself.
What Cloud Service Provider is the Standard?
For years, the community has worked towards developing their staff to be knowledgeable in either Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure because of the promise of the JEDI contract. Few brave souls tried to journey into DISA Cloud One or U.S. Air Force Platform One with mixed results touted with good marketing. However, when the JEDI contract got contested, it introduced two more competing technology stacks, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), through the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC) Contract. This causes an issue because only a few cleared resources comprehend either of the six CSPs well at the architectural level, leaving agencies to compete for cleared resources. An ill-defined interoperability plan further complicates matters, leaving the DoD short of its goal of being Cloud Agnostic.
Where do we go next on the Cloud Journey?
Unfortunately, the above addresses only a few key questions that decision-makers must consider when considering their DoD Cloud Journey. Without a holistic view of what is required to have a successful journey, the Warfighter is without the necessary capabilities to fight current and future wars. We also lack enforceable standards of having a glide path for moving parts of the infrastructure to the Cloud. As a collective, we have to be better than that for War Fighter.
June 18, 2023