Marine Corps to Test API Connection Tool for Enhanced Data Governance, Sharing

The Marine Corps will begin testing an application programming interface connection tool designed to enhance data governance and share data within and outside the Marines’ cloud environment.

In an Ask the CIO episode, Colin Crosby, the service data officer for the Marine Corps, said the trial will use dummy data to validate the API connection capability. The tool is expected to be implemented in the environment’s common management plane over the next 12 months to develop data catalogs, tag and track the flow of data, and facilitate enhanced information sharing, Federal News Network reported.

According to Crosby, the tool will feature automation capabilities to accelerate the extraction of data needed to speed up decision-making efforts and enable commanders to take action in real or near-real time.

The effort is part of the Fighting Smart concept, which aims to develop an integrated mission and data fabric.

“The fabric is a framework and approach of our environment today and how we want to connect our environment in an autonomous fashion using APIs, so that we can pull data and we can share data, regardless of the cloud environment that it’s in, regardless of whatever database structure the data resides in,” Crosby said.