The report, “Navigating the Intelligence Community IT Roadmap,” analyzes key challenges facing the IC and outlines how existing and tested technology capabilities can help IC components gain a strategic advantage over adversaries.

The report’s timely release aligns with the IC’s five-year IT roadmap, which seeks to advance intelligence operations by promoting seamless collaboration, enhanced data sharing and management and the ability to deploy the newest tech innovations rapidly.

The report highlights a variety of currently available technical capabilities developed by GDIT as part of its long-standing work to support the U.S. defense and intelligence agencies, including:

• DeepSky — a private, multi-cloud, on-prem data center environment developed and maintained by GDIT that facilitates the testing of emerging technology and security capabilities from multiple providers in collaboration with government agencies and their partners. “It’s really difficult to ingest massive amounts of data from a bunch of tools and make it usable for an engineer, an analyst or an executive. So DeepSky helps make those tools work together,” says Ryan Deslauriers, director of cybersecurity at GDIT.

• Mission Partner Environments — a new generation of interoperable networking and data exchange environments. Originally designed to allow military units to exchange data with specific partners, these expanded information-sharing environments enable the selective yet secure sharing of sensitive and classified information with trusted military and coalition partners. MPEs make it possible to take a “full report, break out what can and can’t be released, and push it to the appropriate network virtually and automatically so that information gets to relevant users where they are in a timely fashion,” explains Jennifer Krischer, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer who now serves as vice president for defense intelligence at GDIT.

• Raven — a mobile command center tech suite developed by GDIT that fits in the back of a truck. It extends and deploys the data mesh concept to mobile environments. It can be utilized for disaster relief, special forces operations, or disconnected environments, enabling operators to collect and disseminate data from the tactical edge directly to users on the ground and back to the enterprise. Raven is an example of how GDIT “enables teams to conduct their mission without having to develop, build, maintain, and operate the services internally,” notes Nicholas Townsend, senior director at GDIT.

• Federated Data Fabric — creates a unified data environment through a centralized service platform designed to streamline data curation, management, and dissemination and enable seamless access to data independent of its source or security level. It allows users on the network’s edge to discover, request, publish and subscribe to information within a federated network environment.

Workforce commitment

The report also highlights GDIT’s distinctive approach to hiring and training professionals with extensive defense, IC, and technical experience who uniquely understand the needs of the government’s mission.

“Our workforce two to five years from now will need to be different from what it is today and prepared to take advantage of new technology,” notes Chaz Mason, mission engineering and delivery lead at GDIT. Recognizing this, GDIT doubled its investment in tuition and technical training programs in 2023. More than 20,000 employees have taken at least one of our cyber, AI, and cloud upskilling programs, he said.

GDIT’s staff currently numbers 30,000 professionals supporting customers in over 400 locations across 30 countries; 25%+ of the workforce are veterans.

Read more about how GDIT’s vendor-agnostic technology and decades of government customer experience can help achieve the Intelligence Community’s data-sharing vision.

This article was produced by Scoop News Group for FedScoop and DefenseScoop and sponsored by GDIT.

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“Everyone understands” the need to leverage AI for military applications, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville told DefenseScoop on Friday during a media teleconference from the sidelines of the annual Conference of European Armies that’s being held in Germany this week.

“There’s a lot of things that it can do for us. It can do predictive maintenance, it can help us with targeting, it can help us with robotic vehicles, both air and ground. And so those are, you know, things that we take a look at. But the technology itself, and what most we’re interested in … as we modernize our command-and-control systems, [is] that we can continue to conduct those to pass data at the speed of relevance and make sure we don’t move ahead of each other. And … as we have our modernization priorities, for most of the leaders over here [in Europe], they are very interested in ensuring that we can do command-and-control operations together and that we can pass data so we can take advantage of the sensors and shooters that we have in theater,” McConville said.

Army forces on the continent have been conducting exercises with international partners, including earlier this month, to test C2 capabilities.

British troops were also involved in last year’s Project Convergence experiments, which were part of an ongoing campaign of learning that’s part of the U.S. Army’s contribution to JADC2. Additional international partners are expected to be part of next year’s Project Convergence capstone event.

“We talk about convergence, which is the ability to take multiple sensors and bring them into an integrated battle command system, and then use artificial intelligence to quickly pass that data and those targets to the appropriate arrows,” McConville explained.

Counter-drone efforts are an example of an area where the concept and related technologies could be employed.

In such a scenario, the Army would want to make sure its forces and those of its allies are employing “the right weapons systems” together to defeat adversaries’ unmanned platforms. “And that can run anywhere from lasers to high-powered microwaves to … THAAD type, Patriot-type systems. And we see that as the future. And so they are very, very interested in working with us as we move forward in those endeavors,” he said.

McConville has been a proponent of “combined” joint all-domain command and control, or what he calls CJADC2, to include international partners. However, there are challenges associated with that.

“What it comes to is the ability to pass data. And, you know, we all have our command-and-control systems and we’re not going to replace them all to do that. So how do you do that? And how do you do it in a contested environment?” he said.

“You want to have a resilient [communications] path. You know, we talked about data fabrics and data networks, vice [traditional C2] chains, is really what we’re trying to get to. So we want to have the ability to tie together, you know, current systems, the new systems and systems that all our partners have. And that’s the challenge. And then you’ve got to be able to do it in an environment that is going to be contested. And that’s why we’re testing and that’s why we’re developing these systems to make that happen,” he added.

Gen. Darryl Williams, commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, noted that the head of U.S. Army Futures Command attended this year’s iteration of the Conference of European Armies. AFC is helping spearhead the service’s modernization efforts.

“One of the great things about this conference which is different from the past, is that the chief tasked Gen. Jim Rainey to be here. He’s our futures commander, as you know. And he helped reimagine and helped our partners think through the things that you’re talking about,” Williams told DefenseScoop during Friday’s teleconference. “We want to be able to fight and win our nations’ wars, all of our chiefs want to do that. And as … my chief talked about fighting in a multi-domain operation, this is part of that as we go in the future. So, we’re excited about the opportunities to work with our partners and our allies as we go forward in this space.”

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In the past, if systems were fielded to a unit, upon returning to home station, those mission command platforms were then put back on the shelf.

“That’s not a great recipe for data centricity. What we’re trying to do from a data perspective is to establish persistence,” Col. Matthew Paul, project manager for mission command at Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical, said in an interview.

Data centricity is Army Secretary Christine Wormuth’s No. 2 priority for the service.

Paul explained that the Army is now establishing and testing what he called “master data nodes,” which are always on and connected to as many authoritative data sources as they can to ensure access from the enterprise level to the tactical edge.

Many data sources live at the enterprise level or data centers, meaning when divisions and brigades set up their episodic mission command systems they have a hard time connecting to authoritative data sources.

“The way that we’re trying to close that gap is by establishing these master data nodes that persist in Army data centers and in the cloud — and they are always connected to those authoritative data sources and they become a way for units in the field at the edge to be able to access the data that they need, when they need it. Then we deploy what’s called tactical data nodes, with those units that are forward,” Paul said.

According to the Army’s vision, “those divisions, those corps, those brigades even, even battalions … will have tactical data nodes and they’re ubiquitous on the battlefield. They all connect, they connect to each other and they connect to the master data nodes that are considered persistently connected to the authoritative data sources. You’re connected to this web of nodes and you could do the data synchronization and the distributed queries and that data can come from many different places,” he explained.

He likened this to a Google search in which data just shows up from millions of sources when queried by the user, with just a stroke of a key.

These master data nodes are part of the Army’s tactical data fabric solution called LTAC, or lower echelon analytics platform tactical. It is a government-developed solution that is a tactical version of Army Cyber Command’s big data platform Gabriel Nimbus in partnership with Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems.

These master data nodes feed into LTAC in the field which then feeds into the Army’s Command Post Computing Environment server. CPCE is the Army’s web-based common operational picture solution, which collapses several capabilities into an app-like function on a single screen.

LTAC made its official debut at Project Convergence 22 recently. For the tactical data fabric, Paul said his mission at Project Convergence was two-fold: ensuring data access and data synchronization.

“Can commanders access the data that they need at the time of need, and can they get the data at the right place at the right time … which is the ability to synchronize data between echelons and across formations more effectively?” he said.

Lessons are still being pulled together from Project Convergence, but the tactical data fabric solution will next be going out to the Pacific for a series of exercises and tests to support U.S. Army Pacific Headquarters and mature the solution.

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At the Army’s capstone Project Convergence 22 exercise — which is intended to test technologies and concepts for Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) — the service will deploy what it calls the tactical data fabric.

A data fabric is not a single solution, but rather, a federated environment that allows information-sharing among various forces and echelons.

This capability, while not a standalone program, is part of the larger Command Post Computing Environment (CPCE), a web-enabled system that will consolidate current mission systems and programs into a single user interface at command posts to provide a common operational picture.

Army officials explained that the need for a data fabric is tied into CPCE.

“What we’re trying to do right now with regard to data is we’re trying to provide better connective tissue to stitch all of that data together so at the end of the day, the commander has the data that he or she needs to accomplish their mission,” Col. Matthew Paul, project manager for mission command at Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical, told reporters Thursday at Aberdeen Proving Ground. “We have ways to do that today, but it’s very manually intensive, clunky and error prone ways to move data and to manage data. We’re trying to harmonize that with what we call tactical data fabric.”

The technology will enhance commanders’ ability to access data and synchronize it between echelons and formations more seamlessly.

While the Army has experimented with the tactical data fabric with Army Pacific, Project Convergence will provide a venue to demonstrate to senior leaders the ability to bridge the divide between the enterprise data ecosystems and the tactical data ecosystems.

The Army plans to connect several systems, such as the Army Intelligence Data Platform and Army Vantage, and proliferate data in a seamless way, Paul said.

The minimum viable product will be on display, which is largely a government-built platform as opposed to a commercially-built system provided by vendors.

The capability is a tactical version of Army Cyber Command’s big data platform Gabriel Nimbus. Several so-called big data platforms exist across U.S. Cyber Command, the Defense Information Systems Agency, Army Cyber Command and the Marine Corps. They are essentially hybrid cloud environments that allow for storage, computation and analytics across networked sensors. When forces conduct cyber missions, they collect data and use high-powered analytics to make sense of it. Big data platforms do just that, but also share that analysis in an easy-to-access repository for other forces.

Moreover, this platform has essentially subsumed a previous government science and technology effort called Rainmaker.

In Project Convergence 21, Rainmaker and the tactically focused Gabriel Nimbus platform were running side by side, Paul said. Now it’s a singular system.

“Rainmaker … as a program or as an S&T initiative does not exist anymore, but we did take some of those key components and integrate them into our tactical data fabric social net, using that ARCYBER [solution] as a baseline,” Paul said.

Going forward, Paul said the Army will bring problems or gaps to industry to help solve, but not necessarily build an entire data fabric.

“We’re not looking for … industry to provide us with a big monolithic solution end-to-end. When we have specific challenge areas, we will look to industry for support,” he said.

The Army’s tactical data fabric is also expected to benefit the other services and coalition forces.

“What tactical data fabric will do, it will be able to make more data and better data available to our joint partners more frequently and it’ll be more timely. I think that’s the value proposition of a fabric,” Paul said.

Experimentation has allowed the Army to understand what data standards it needs to prioritize, which is shared with the Defense Department’s JADC2 cross-functional team for greater joint situational awareness.

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The review is aimed at evaluating requirements.

“The vice and I are leading a capability portfolio review of the entire Army network. That’s looking at everything from our requirements for unified network operations, to cybersecurity, to transport — both enterprise and tactical — and looking at cloud adoption and data analytics,” Gabe Camarillo, undersecretary of the Army, told reporters during a visit to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, Aug. 23 to assess the tactical network portfolio. “We’re looking at it systematically to try to [see] how do we rationalize those requirements, rationalize our investment and spend?”

The Army is undertaking a multi-year effort to deliver a next-generation network, one that unifies its enterprise systems and the systems delivered to tactical environments where troops communicate and transmit battlefield data.

Officials have noted issues in transitioning data and operations from the strategic to tactical networks especially when moving from theater to theater. Some have previously cited issues in which units were not able to join the network immediately upon entering a theater — most recently during the withdrawal operations in Afghanistan — which creates big problems for the Army as it is trying to be more expeditionary.

With a lot of different organizations and pots of money, Camarillo said Army leadership wanted to get their hands around the effort in its entirety.

“If you think about our spend on everything network, from enterprise to tactical, it was in a lot of different organizations. Within the Army, it was in a lot of PEGs, or Program Evaluation Groups, which are the way we segment our [project objective memorandum], our budgets,” Camarillo told reporters Aug. 24 following remarks at the Potomac Officers Club Army Summit. “The idea was to get our arms wrapped around all of it in one place and look at it comprehensively so that we can make sure that we’re making the most effective use of our resources and reprioritizing where needed.”

The review is slated to wrap up this fall.

As the Army’s tactical network team is working to deliver incremental capability advancements to its integrated tactical network through two-year capability sets, Camarillo has charged them with identifying “big bets,” which will also align with the service’s goal of realizing Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), a top priority for the Pentagon.

“The reason we talked about big bets is in order for the Army to enable JADC2, which is the transport of critical data on the battlefield, which is absolutely critical to the joint force’s success, we have to be able to make the right investments, define the right requirements and to orient our programs to what is going to help us achieve that next-generation level of capability,” Camarillo told reporters.

“I’ve challenged the team here today [about] what can we do in terms of looking at next-generation requirements, big bets, whether it’s in the transport layer, all of our tactical radios, what do we need to do to get at the next generation of evolution? … As we look ahead to the next five years, where do we want to be?” he added.

Officials said these big bets aren’t all about equipment or programs, but processes as well.  

“What are those processes that [the undersecretary] can assist us with and potentially getting us across the finish line and moving technology a little faster through the cycle for the … acquisition cycle. [Camarillo] wants to understand what he can help us with when it comes to that,” Brig. Gen. Jeth Rey, director of the Army’s network cross-functional team, told reporters at Aberdeen.

Rey said service leaders asked for a broad set of areas the network team can identify as aim points. The team then identified areas they were working on for the future but used Camarillo’s visit to Aberdeen as a way to assess if everyone was on the same page with these big bets.

These big bets include areas such as virtualization, auto-primary, alternate, contingency and emergency communications, data security, data fabrics and network resiliency, among others.

“From an enabler, looking at things like JADC2 he asked us about transport and bandwidth — are those things that we want to make a big bet on in order to get that particular capability moving from an Army perspective?” Rey said. “He wants us to also look at our data fabric — how does that play into a capability that we can use across all services?”

In fact, the Army has already been able to pull a lot of capability surrounding a data fabric — which is not a single solution, but rather, a federated environment that allows information-sharing among various forces and echelons — forward through experimentation.

“We didn’t really have a tactical data fabric per se in [capability set] 21 but … there was a lot of effort in the S&T community and industry around the data fabric. We took it to [Project Convergence] 21. We got a lot of really good feedback from PC 21 and other events,” Nicholaus Saacks, deputy program executive officer in Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical, told reporters. “We’re getting ready now to field it now as part of Cap Set 23 and the way we’re building it is open enough that come Cap Set 25, if there’s new technologies available or new ways to do it, we can insert those in there.”

The office of the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology (ASAALT) is also working on developing a data mesh that will federate the various data fabrics.

“We’re actually making very rapid progress on that data mesh reference architecture. And our intent is to build it [and] give it to industry to give us feedback because we want to make sure that we’re not missing big things, or if we are, we want that feedback to be built into the final version of the reference architecture,” Jennifer Swanson, chief systems engineer in ASAALT, said at the Army Summit.

“We’ve been talking about standards for a long time. We need to now give you what those standards are. And I think that really opens up the playing field for industry because our intent is to allow the industry to plug into that data mesh … We need you to bring your black boxes, but we want to be able to own not just the data, but also all the things that happen to the data over time so that it is really an even playing field and not [have the Army in a position where it’s not] able to compete the next contract because we don’t have all intellectual property that we need with data.”

Rey said the team needs to provide recommendations to top Army leadership about different ways to acquire IT equipment than the current process.

“Is there something that [they] can help with to put that particular technology into the hands of the user a little bit faster?” Rey said. “I think we all come back to [them] on what part of the process needs to be adjusted or something new introduced. I think that’s what we owe them.”

Others said they owe the Army more insights from a threat perspective.

“Part of it is getting to a shared understanding of what’s next from a threat perspective, from an operational concept perspective, from a technology perspective, both where we see commercial technology evolving and that’s particularly applicable within this C5ISR area, but also, where we may have some unique needs that are going to hinder our ability to take advantage of it fully without some modification,” Joseph Welch, director of the C5ISR Center, said. “From an experimentation perspective, where do we see that moving forward in our ability to better understand the warfighting systems we’ll develop before we can deploy them.”

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