Data’s Role in a Nation’s Defense

What does data mean to the United States Department of Defense? Everything.

In 2019, the DoD made the decision to transform into a data-centric organization in order to better use data for a variety of goals, from better preparedness and improved battlefield outcomes to more efficient operations and procurement.

The DoD recognized the importance of being able to locate, access, and make available data at speed and scale, but this was a significant challenge in an organization of its size.

The DoD is the largest agency in the US government with 1.3 million active-duty troops across its branches, 750,000 civilian employees, and 811,000 National Guard and reserve troops. It is the largest employer in the nation – and in the world.

It has a vast number of systems, databases and legacy technology where its data is stored, with little visibility or interoperability between them. The DoD needed an integration strategy.

The must-haves:

• Visibility: Allowing data consumers to locate the data they need.
• Accessibility: Consumers of data can retrieve the data they need.
• Understandability: Data consumers can recognize the content, context, and applicability.
• Linked relationships: Enabling data consumers to exploit data elements through innate relationships.
• Trustworthiness: To be confident in all aspects of data for decision-making.
• Interoperability: A common representation/comprehension of data.
• Security: Protected data from unauthorized use/manipulation.

Much of what the department was aiming to do sounded familiar to people with experience in private sector information technology. And, like many digital transformation projects in the private sector, the DoD cannot rip and replace systems and build from the ground up to support its data strategy.
When they say legacy systems are “mission-critical,” they are exactly that – supporting missions and activities that protect soldiers, sailors, and civilians alike.

API-led Hybrid Integration

Software AG Government Solutions has helped US federal agencies break down barriers to data locked in siloed systems, applications, and cloud and legacy systems.”

View our latest on-demand webinar, The Key to a Successful DoD Data Strategy: Secure APIs & Hybrid Integration, here.

There you will learn how the DoD did it and how you can do it yourselves:
• Unlock data from any data source
• Rapidly expose data and services with APIs
• Support a collaborative API lifecycle
• Secure your APIs and implement zero-trust architectures
• Share up-to-date information quickly and reliably with APIs

Also, be sure to take a look at our related article, “Connecting the Data: API-led Integration Is Key to DOD’s Data Strategy”, here.