DOD Official Emphasizes Link Between Cloud Adoption, Software Modernization

The Department of Defense considers cloud migration a requirement for software modernization, a top technology official said.

In early February, the Pentagon published a software modernization strategy that establishes its enterprise software goals and supersedes its 2018 cloud strategy.

Danielle Metz, the DOD’s deputy chief information officer for information enterprise, said the department opted not to separate the two elements as doing so would imply that software modernization can be achieved without the cloud, FedScoop reported Tuesday.

Since late 2019, the DOD has been emphasizing software modernization as the main reason for adopting cloud, Metz said at an event hosted by Federal News Network.

According to a memo signed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, the goal of the modernization effort is to ensure the DOD can deliver software products “at the speed of relevance.”

Accelerating the DOD’s creation of an enterprise cloud environment is one of the software modernization strategy’s three overarching objectives.

Hicks emphasized the need to transition from running disparate cloud efforts to using a structured, integrated and cost-effective cloud portfolio.

As part of the cloud environment objective, the department also wants to develop a portfolio of cloud contracts, secure data in the cloud, accelerate cloud adoption through automation, and create cloud infrastructure for bases outside the continental United States.

The strategy’s two other goals are to create a department-wide software factory ecosystem and to transform processes to enable resilience and speed.