SHAPING ARMY ACQUISITION
ACT awarded 12 software tool prototypes at a cost of $12.8 million, with an average lead time to award of four to six months. Additionally, ACT hosted 3,500 visitors and held more than 250 events, includ- ing cyber exercises for the U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps.
More recently, ACT developed its Defen- sive Cyber Operations Resource for Updates, Innovation and Development (DRUID), a cloud-based continuous inte- gration and continuous delivery pipeline that reduces systems integration time for tools from months to approximately one week. ACT developed DRUID in order to push systems integration to the beginning of the acquisition process, thus allowing for better informed—andmuch quicker— prototype-project award decisions. Since these decisions can now happen much
earlier in the process, the overall time to acquire tools is greatly reduced. Addi- tionally, DRUID enables ACT to receive an increased number of tools for assess- ment, allowing it to evaluate more tools in a much shorter period of time. Interest- ingly, one of the most innovative features of DRUID is its ability to shift the cost of tool integration from government to industry. ACT understood that indus- try would willingly offer prototypes at no cost in exchange for the chance to secure an award.
During the summer of 2019, in the first other-transaction authority (OTA) proto- type round using DRUID, 22 vendors successfully delivered functional tool images containing prototypes through the pipeline. It took less than one week, and the only cost to the government was the
outlay for DRUID, which is a mere frac- tion of what it would have cost to get the 22 tool images ACT secured in just the first prototype round.
DRUID greatly expands the breadth of vendor participation, significantly reduces tool integration time, increases the number of tools that can be assessed and eliminates the government’s upfront cost for proto- types. Tis approach will enable ACT to provide the most effective solutions to cyber defenders quickly, while saving the government a significant amount of money in the near and long term.
Of course, advances like DRUID never happen in a vacuum. ACT’s team and industry partners were critical to making it all happen. But, more than anything, ACT’s culture has been its strength. ACT
DEFENSIVE EXERCISE
Nearly 600 Soldiers from more than 40 states participated in the National Guard’s Cyber Shield 20 exercise Sept. 12–27. The defensively focused tactical annual cyber exercise was hosted virtually and gave Soldiers the chance to develop and use their cyber defense skills. (Photo by Master Sgt. Becky Vanshur, Idaho Army National Guard)
https://asc.ar my.mil
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