The Pentagon wants to turn its 29 software factories into one 'ecosystem'

The Pentagon has a lot of coders, but not enough coordination. (Graphic by Breaking Defense)

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon wants to turn its 29 software factories into one overarching department-wide “ecosystem” in a move to rapidly acquire and deliver software at speed.

The software factory ecosystem is one of the three major objectives outlined in a new software modernization strategy [PDF] Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks approved last week. The document directs the Defense Department’s chief information officer, along with the undersecretaries of defense for acquisition and sustainment and research and engineering, to lead the implementation of the strategy.

In a briefing with reporters today, defense officials said the centralized ecosystem would take advantage of investments made by each individual military service. They did not comment on whether the total number of software factories would be reduced, however.

“When we look at a lot of the core capabilities across these software factories, let’s just start with code source management — do we need every single software factory to go out there and procure and manage and operate their own source code repository?” Jason Weiss, DoD’s chief software officer, told reporters. “I think those are examples of where we can actually start to see economies of scale in terms of operational capacity and cost reductions for the department … If we can achieve that, then that allows the software factory ecosystem to continue to grow, but [also] operate with higher degrees of scale and precision without having to start from scratch at every point.”

A centralized software hub would also help streamline control points for end-to-end software delivery and speed innovation into soldiers’ hands, according to the strategy.

DoD’s Software Modernization Senior Steering Group is tasked with developing an implementation plan for the strategy within six months and overseeing enterprise-wide progress.

Weiss noted the Pentagon has created a task force under the steering group which will recommend best practices and policy changes that should be considered for commercial technology insertion “in the form of software containers.”

“But we see this picking up more and more speed and momentum, especially given the number of software factories,” he said. “We’re seeing lots of lessons learned start to percolate to the top and a lot of collaboration taking place through things like our DevSecOps community of practice. So it is a living and breathing ecosystem. And we are going to be looking at and listening to those software factories to determine what policy changes to prioritize and when to affect them.”

The strategy warns that current DoD processes governing the way the department buys, implements and operates across missions, can’t keep up with the changing pace of technology. DoD also needs to “participate in industry and international standards bodies to ensure that adopted software standards benefit the collective global community,” according to the strategy.

One major objective in the strategy is “advancing technical competencies,” or improving the workforce, through establishing a “standard and dynamic inventory of baseline training and augment that training with investments in cross-Service, on-the-job apprenticeship programs and rotation opportunities,” according to the strategy.

Accelerating DoD’s enterprise cloud environment is another goal of the strategy. The Pentagon still wants a “multi-cloud, multi-vendor” approach, aligning with its Joint Warfighting Cloud Computing program effort — which, notably, was not namechecked in the document, despite being perhaps the Pentagon’s most important software backbone.

“Working with commercial cloud service providers continues to be critical as the Department technically evolves,” according to the strategy. “DoD and commercial cloud services must work together to quickly and securely deploy cloud services and ensure transparency of cybersecurity activities to maintain the protection of DoD data.”