Department of Defense Needs Enterprise Cloud for JADC2 Goal, General Says

Enterprise cloud is critical for the Department of Defense’s goal to connect sensors from all of the military services into a single network, according to a top general.

Dennis Crall, chief information officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a 2021 Wash100 winner, said the Pentagon needs to establish a department-wide cloud for its Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, C4ISRNET reported Thursday.

Enterprise cloud technology will allow the department to overcome challenges in artificial intelligence, data sharing, data sharing, data processing and the tactical edge, he said during a conference hosted by C4ISRNET.

The DOD released its cloud strategy in December 2018, announcing the military services’ need for a general-purpose and a fit-for-purpose cloud.

The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure was supposed to serve as the department’s enterprise-wide, general-purpose cloud for the majority of its systems and applications. The $10 billion JEDI contract has been held up by a legal battle involving Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.

For now, the DOD is directing resources to existing solutions such as General Dynamics Information Technology’s milCloud 2.0 and the Air Force’s Cloud One platform.

Crall said that the DOD will have many more objectives on its checklist even after the establishment of an enterprise cloud.

“Just because you’ve established the environment doesn’t mean you have the sharing agreements and doesn’t necessarily mean you have the security apparatus in place to ensure the data is safe,” the general said.

He added that the Pentagon will be picky with the design of its enterprise cloud as some cloud concepts are not fit to support the warfighter.