STITCHING THE ARMY'S DATA FABRIC
To reach that future objective state, the Army is following an incremental approach to deliver data fabric capability over time through the network capa- bility set construct. Working across the Army modernization enterprise, and in collaboration with our joint service and industry partners, the Army has matured its own tactical data fabric and is now experimenting with additional commer- cial capabilities, with the goal of initial fielding in fiscal year 2023.
THE WHY AND WHAT Access to the right information at the right time is a critical element to achieving future battlefield advantage at the oper- ational and tactical levels. Timely access to data depends on agility in how data is managed. As Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. James McConville put it, “We’ve got to be able to move data machine to machine very, very quickly. Tat is the secret if you want to get to speed, range and convergence.”
To achieve that goal, there are several chal- lenges the Army needs to overcome. First, data in warfighting functional systems (such as fires, maneuver or sustainment) is often stovepiped or isolated, which can result in inconsistent and missing data in the common operational picture. When data is exchanged between warfighting function systems,
it is frequently
compressed due to message exchange formats, and it loses some of the informa- tion from the original source. Additionally, data is unnecessarily restricted from poten- tial consumers when systems inherit the classification of the network they reside on, rather than managing the classifica- tion of the data itself. Finally, artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities—a necessity in order to operate at the speed of digi- tal war—are starved for data, because warfighting systems generate information at high volume but without great value, as
So how does it work? Recently, the JADC2 Cross-Functional Team, run by the Joint Staff J-6, codified data fabric as a “Department of Defense federated data environment for sharing information through interfaces and services to discover, understand, and exchange data with part- ners across all domains, security levels and echelons.” Te key capability components to achieve this outcome include metadata tagging, common interfaces, and security and access controls.
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much of the collected data remains unpro- cessed and difficult to find, unbeknownst to the operator.
Tese technical challenges, coupled with the rising number of data sources avail- able to operators, underscores the need for autonomous, flexible data integration capabilities that harvest and deliver the required data when needed. Data fabric provides that common layer to enable data discovery, synchronization and security across multiple silos and platforms— addressing the conundrum of having both too much data and too little.
Metadata tagging describes character- istics about the data such as security or origin, and supports automated process- ing. Applying these tags using data fabric’s common design patterns and discoverable infrastructure helps make data visi- ble, accessible, understandable, trusted, interoperable and secure.
The fabric creates a larger pool of data that is more enriched, synchronized and transparent, and routes the right data to the operator who needs it.
Common data interfaces are standards that ensure data can cross boundaries where independent systems interact with- out losing its meaning. Tese interfaces are essential to getting data to and from data producers and consumers, including machine-to-machine accessibility. In both military and commercial instances of data fabric, this framework is achieved through application programming interfaces (APIs), which are software intermediaries that allow distinct applications to interact. Data fabric APIs are open and standards- based, which enables the Army to more quickly implement new and existing capa- bilities from multiple services and industry partners.
Te final components of data fabric focus on access controls and security. Access controls determine whether an individ- ual, or an AI algorithm, is permitted to search, retrieve, read, create or manipu- late data. Data security protects the data itself—at rest and in transit, regardless of the system hosting environment—from unauthorized discovery, modification or destruction. Together, access controls and security support efficient access to, and sharing across, varied data sources with- out compromising the integrity of the information.
PROJECT RAINMAKER Te Army’s major contribution to data fabric development thus far is called Proj- ect Rainmaker, a science-and-technology effort spearheaded by the Command, Control, Communications, Computers,
Army AL&T Magazine
Fall 2021
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