Digital technologies like Cloud Computing are now rapidly finding their way into high tech weapons systems. Modern day weaponry is under two main sorts of threats. The first one is to gain un-authorized access to such weapons systems and disable them.
The other motive behind targeting weapons systems is generally technology theft. A country that develops any weapons system, whether its for defense or offense, thousands of hours and billions of dollars go into its development.
Imagine how demoralizing would it be for the military of any country if it finds out one day that its cyber security perimeter has been breached, resulting in either disabling of the weapons system they control, or theft of technology that went into its creation.
The US Department of Defense (DOD) is moving ahead with a multi-vendor approach to its deployed Cloud Computing environments. The entire program of transitioning military operations to the Cloud is being dubbed as Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability.
Just like the recently awarded Pentagon’s multi billion dollar contract, the two leading contenders for implementing this extensive program across the US Military are Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
On the same footing as that of the US Army, the US Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is also proceeding with the implementation of hybrid cloud environments within its various domains. DISA is in fact the IT services wing of the Pentagon.
This is indeed a great leap forward for both the US Army, and Pentagon’s DISA. The US Army will be getting a first hand feel of the hybrid cloud, when it supports tactical operations being undertaken in the Pacific region.
The DISA is more keen on taking a containerized approach towards implementing hybrid cloud within its environments. One element which makes hybrid cloud adoption an even more significant event is that it is being implemented outside US soil.
This speaks volumes about the trust and confidence that the US Army and the Department of Defense (DOD) are placing in the hybrid cloud. This first deployment will be a mix of on-premise data centers, and commercial cloud services.
Another factor that is being cited for this move to the hybrid cloud is to streamline the storage and processing of highly sensitive military data. At the heart of these most recent efforts lies the resolve to adopt a data centric approach towards cloud migration.
In the near future, experts believe that these hybrid cloud deployments would have fully matured. As a result, the US military personnel out there will be able to gauge mission threats and operational scenarios in a much more secure and efficient manner.
