CLOUD FORMATIONS
IMPLEMENTATION AND EXPERIMENTATION Te Network Cross-Functional Team is working with the Army’s Enterprise Cloud Management Agency (ECMA), Project Manager Mission Command (PM MC) and others to make this tactical hybrid capability a reality. In the beginning, the team worked with PM Mission Command on a pilot to see if current software could be served from a cloud without operating outside of current contract constraints. PM MC, the Network Cross-Functional Team and the Pennsylvania National Guard proved it was possible in a Non- classified Internet Protocol (IP) Router Network (NIPRNet) environment. Others expanded on that capability once Secret IP Router Network (SIPRNet) capabili- ties were available from ECMA’s cArmy service, which provides an authorized and accredited set of general-purpose multiven- dor cloud environments that host Army IT services for multiple classifications.
Initially, PM Mission Command, the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and the Network Cross-Functional Team collaborated on a pilot to explore the technical possibility of placing currently fielded Mission Command Information Systems, the core of the Command Post Computing Environment, in a NIPRNet cloud—because of accreditation timelines, the pilot could not expand into SIPRNet. Te Tactical Cloud Pilot, Increment I
validated the hypothesis that units could be trained on new software without being issued associated hardware. COVID-19 constraints forced an adaptation that also proved that, while not ideal, such train- ing could be done remotely. Others took notice of the success and began work on their own adaptations. One U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command use case is attempting to expand the number of users and locations, while units are striving to exercise these capabilities in tactical scenarios to inform the require- ments community.
Today, we are leveraging the XVIII Airborne Corps’ Project Ridgway to pilot hosting capabilities through cArmy, with Amazon Web Services in the 101st Airborne Division and Microsoft Azure in the 82nd Airborne Division. As part of Project Ridgway, which encompasses XVIII Corps data and software modern- ization efforts, these units are providing realistic use cases and putting them to the test with current and legacy software during various experiments and field exer- cises on a mix of hyperscale, commodity and vendor on-premises cloud solutions.
The Network Cross-Functional Team also just began working with I Corps on upcoming events for the spring of 2022. Upon successful I Corps implementation, the Army will have initially experi- mented or piloted with as-is software and
configuration in at least one of the two cArmy cloud options from the battalion all the way up through the corps and brigade echelons, and division in the other.
What value does this bring to the Army? These pilots demonstrate possibility. While not the ideal or most fiscally effi- cient arrangement of software, with the episodic nature of exercises and operations, the Army can put cloud computing to use to enable a persistent, real-time mission command environment delivering those resources as a service to the total Army. When online, every unit asset could have secure access to the same common oper- ating picture of resources and capabilities. In a contested environment, critical data and services for maneuvering capability will remain with the units geographi- cally. However, much work still must be done to make this a feasible option for any program of record. In general, fielding to the cloud with as-is software is currently cost prohibitive.
CONCLUSION Tere is still much work to be done, mainly with the key tool that creates, consumes and disseminates our data: software. With the availability of dynamic computing and storage paradigms enabled by cloud computing comes a new set of challenges for how we use software. Te software that the tactical Army currently owns and operates was not built to be run in
Cloud has become a way to offload expertise requirements and hardware investments while allowing for instant flexibility—if you need more computing and storage resources, you pay for them, click a button and they are instantly available.
34 Army AL&T Magazine Spring 2022
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