"It is key to unlocking the modern capability that we all crave within our Department of Defenses and our alliances," acting Pentagon CIO Leslie Beavers said.
Counter-UAS, ISR sensors, autonomous platforms all depend on truly secure cloud computing.
As aircraft shrink, threats expand, and technology accelerates, aircraft engines must iterate along with the threats.
JADC2 is a forcing function, driving digital transformation of network infrastructure.
The service branches aren't mandated to use the up-to $9 billion services, but the Army and Navy are getting into the game with some secret-level and wargaming-related programs, according to service documents provided to Breaking Defense.
Sherman said that there is no timeframe for when the department will release a request for information for JWCC 2.0 or when the effort will roll out next year, but added that DoD was “firmly committed to multi-cloud, multi-vendor, and this is what we’re going to be doing going forward.”
GDIT President Amy Gilliland spoke to Breaking Defense about how the tech company is redirecting its investments to meet the technological demands of the day, including incorporating lessons from Ukraine.
Six companies have already signed up for a new flight-test program to mature their autonomy software.
Set to start this spring, the test is not a requirement for the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract, but an “independent” experiment by the Pentagon CIO’s Zero Trust office, said director Randy Resnick.
Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo told reporters the service plans to award contracts for the Vantage re-compete towards the end of this year.
JWCC is a multi-vendor, multi-cloud follow up to the infamous single-source Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, which was worth up to $10 billion and canceled in 2021.
“Naysayers will argue that the strategy is five years or more too late, and although they might be correct, the bigger takeaway is that the DoD has found religion on cybersecurity and they are addressing it architecturally, aiming for a lasting and measurable effect,” Eric Noonan, CEO of CyberSheath and former BAE Systems CISO, told Breaking Defense.
Modeling and simulation get an AI upgrade for more realistic training and improved autonomous platforms.
“We’re no longer at a point where we have to necessarily grab new technology to solve our problems,” Air Force Chief Information Officer Lauren Knausenberger said.
"What you’re going to see is a greater level of detail and maturity for not just leveraging commercial cloud computing, but really how that starts to extend into our on-premise locations, how this starts to extend into our tactical locations," Paul Puckett, director of the Army's Enterprise Cloud Management Office said.
“I think that we have struggled for a very long time on the Mission Partner Environment,” Danielle Metz, chief IT strategist for the office of the secretary of defense, said. “The combatant commanders have been screaming for the need to be able to seamlessly… collaborate not only internally with themselves, but across the mission partners.
The director of the Defense Information Systems Agency laid out 14 areas where industry can help the agency.