August 3, 2020 | International, C4ISR
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's top IT official provided an update July 30 on a wide range of ongoing initiatives underway at the department as it continues to grapple with a remote workforce amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy highlighted several ongoing projects related to artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing, while also discussing the department's Commercial Virtual Remote Environment that's allowed nearly 1 million Department of Defense employees to collaborate while working from home
Here's a roundup of what Deasy told reporters:
Cloud developments
The Defense Department has struggled for more than a year to procure its enterprisewide cloud, known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, a platform DoD leadership has continuously said will break down data silos and enhance artificial intelligence capabilities. But, as Deasy has stated repeatedly, JEDI is not going to be the DoD's only cloud.
“Cloud has always been much more than JEDI,” Deasy said.
Work on the JEDI cloud, which was awarded to Microsoft in October last year and subsequently protested by Amazon Web Services, is on hold after a federal judge issued an injunction earlier this year upon determining it was likely the DoD erred in its evaluations of the two tech companies' proposals.
The DoD is taking corrective action on the award, with Deasy saying the department intends to re-announce the winner “probably sometimes towards the very end of August, barring any last minute, unforeseen additional issues that are raised.”
In the meantime, the DoD has stamped the Air Force's Platform One cloud offering as an enterprise service, giving DoD components a certified place to go for DevSecOps, Deasy said.
“What the big message there was, we actually for the first time had designated a cloud across DoD that could be used for a common way of doing DevSecOps,” he said.
AI and JADC2
The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center is pivoting to focus on Joint All-Domain Command and Control, a Pentagon-led effort to connect sensors and shooters. Through its Joint Common Foundation, Deasy said, the JAIC has tools and capabilities to develop AI capabilities at scale.
“That has now allowed us as we've matured to say: ‘What we've always known we really need to ... get JAIC focused on is the joint all-domain space,‘ ” Deasy said, adding that the center is looking at joint fires, the electromagnetic spectrum and strategic mobility.
The JAIC, he said, is working on a cognitive assistant to deliver commanders relevant data from the hoards of information that come from the battlefield to quicken decision-making. But he added that the JAIC will expand into other areas of joint all-domain operations.
“JADC2 is made up of a bunch of different areas ... including electromagnetic spectrum, how do we move forces, how do we target,” Deasy said. “But right now it's all about how do you take streams of information and allow the machine and human to interact together to make better decisions.”
The new chief data officer
In June, the DoD announced that former Special Operations Command chief data officer Dave Spirk would become the DoD's new CDO.
Deasy told reporters July 30 that Spirk will focus on “strengthening data governance, interoperability, and data protection across the department,” which he went on to describe as a “major effort.”
“The chief data officer is on a directed, 90-day listening tour where he is talking to senior leaders in the Pentagon, war fighters and at the combatant commands, industry and academia to assess the overall department's progress,” Deasy said. “At the conclusion of the 90-day tour, Dave will provide a written assessment with a plan of action.”
Deasy added that a DoD data strategy will be released “in the coming months.”
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May 14, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval
By: Mark Pomerleau The Marine Corps has revamped its requirements for a large unmanned aerial system after industry leaders said an early version of the drone could cost as much as $100 million. Now, Marine leaders are following a tiered approach to the requirements as a way to manage costs and work closely with industry. The Marines are charting ahead with the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Unmanned Expeditionary, or MUX, group 5 UAS. The Marines have long expressed a desire for an organic drone in the Group 5 category, the largest category of military drones. The initial desired capability set for the MUX was extremely broad, mirroring a Swiss Army knife of mission sets. When first presented to industry, leaders derided the expansive mission set as too costly. “They came back and said you're talking about something that's going to be $100 million, as big as a V-22. Are you sure that's what you want?,” Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration, told a small group of reporters following his appearance at the Modular Open Systems Summit in Washington May 1. “We said ‘No, that's not what we want, not something that big. We want something to fly off a ship, off an expeditionary site. What that allowed us to do through the industry involvement then was to neck down, if you look at the [request for information] we sent out for the industry day, it tiered the requirements.” The initial RFI was released March 8. With the tiered requirements approach, Walsh explained that the Marines listed four capabilities they wanted most, while others could be nice to haves or even be handled by other assets. Tier 1 capabilities include airborne early warning – which Walsh said industry wasn't heavily considering but is a capability the Marines absolutely need coming off a ship – command and control communications, digitally passing information, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and electronic warfare. Additional capabilities include potential weapons armament if the drone will escort V-22s and logistics. “Amazon, FedEx, somebody else will help us with that and we'll probably buy what they're developing,” Walsh said of the logistics portion. Similarly, Col. James Frey, the director of the Marine Corps' Aviation Expeditionary Enablers branch, told USNI News that the Future Vertical Lift program might fill this void, adding that whatever is not covered by the program could be done with the CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter. Ultimately, Walsh noted that bringing industry in early will help the service refine its requirements before setting them in stone, leading to a better capability. The industry day, slated for June 6 and 7, will “bring everybody together and help us with this and have like a workshop approach to that. Both primes and small subs,” he said. “I find this is a way that will allow us to go fast.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2018/05/02/what-do-marines-want-in-their-next-drone-everything/