an intruder with access to all the data in the cloud, so some segmentation would be necessary.
For civil or federal government, moving to commercial clouds calls for a closer relationship with industry. As cloud providers, industry has two key roles, Garciga says. The first is education. Industry must use government input to standardize language so that customers and providers are on the same page. This is vital for effective government acquisition and industry support.
Industry’s second key role is to determine how its best practices and emerging capabilities can serve as enablers for the Defense Department. Because JIDO is a QRC organization, it has been able to exploit that effectively, Garciga relates.
Basic challenges persist for industry.
And industry as a whole must package its capabilities in ways that make them more easily deployable on Defense Department networks, he emphasizes. This is even more important when dealing with big data capabilities. This area needs more refinement, as some models are difficult for the government to deal with— especially when they are proprietary and lack flexibility, he offers.
Garciga continues with predictions about the future of the cloud. The next five years may see an aggressive move of business-type systems that will resemble more of a hybrid model than a full-bore move to the cloud, he says. Mission systems may be part of more private clouds, especially within the defense and intelligence communities. These systems within the Defense Department likely will be hybrid. While business systems will continue to move to the cloud, areas such as health care will face challenges.
Garciga believes that some development activities also will move to the cloud. Software and capability development, from research to production, likely will leverage the cloud extensively. This will take place in both the defense and intelligence communities, he offers. Speed and time to delivery will benefit.
Moving to the cloud will have its most disruptive effect in the development and operations (DevOps) model, Garciga says. JIDO is pushing hard in this area, especially in risk management for cybersecurity. This would entail implementing a fully automated, continuous authorization pipeline to push out capabilities. “That will have huge long-term ramifications,” he declares, adding that it will lead to substantial cost savings and efficiencies.
U.S. Marines in Afghanistan stand watch in a mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle. The Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization (JIDO) is considering factors such as security and reliability as it carefully weighs which types of data it will move to the cloud.