Army unleashes ‘master data brokers’ to break down sharing obstacles

When the Army launched its data operations center in April, the goal was to create a centralized service that will reduce the burden on warfighters.

Over the long term, ADOC hopes to make it easier for warfighters to use artificial intelligence and machine learning tools by turning raw data into refined intelligence.

David Markowitz, the Army’s chief data and analytics officer, said a lot of Army commands need to access and use data to drive missions, and ADOC is creating the processes and tools to make it easier across the entire service.

“The Army Data Operation Center are asking for things like, where do I get predictive weather information? Sometimes that’s the Air Force. Sometimes that’s the G2. But the unit needs to know the weather prediction, and they need to know where to get that information,” said Markowitz at the recent AFCEA TechNet Cyber conference. “Another example was maritime trends. It’s not a normal Army thing. So, if a division needs maritime data, who do they go to for integration? They go to the ADOC, who will then reach out to a Fourth Estate agency or to the Navy to provide that integration going forward. Those are two examples where we’ve had that data need to get integrated to the field to help our soldiers.”

ADOC reached initial operating capability on April 3 at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The Army Cyber Command is running the center to ensure data remains secure but accessible.

“The Army Data Operations Center represents a pivotal step in our journey to becoming a truly data-centric force,” said Lt. Gen. Christopher Eubank, commanding general of Army Cyber Command, during an April briefing. “By enabling seamless access to trusted, actionable data, ADOC ensures that our commanders and soldiers are equipped to make precise, timely decisions. This capability is essential to maintaining our advantage … ultimately allowing us to set the land domain through the cyber domain.”

The problem ADOC is solving isn’t one of data, but one about data management, said Lt. Gen. Jeth Rey, the Army deputy chief of staff, G-6, during a media roundtable on April 7.

Greasing the data wheel

Under ADOC, the Army says a team of “master data brokers” will be responsible for identifying authoritative sources, establishing secure connections and routing critical information to the point of need, to include enterprise systems and joint and coalition partners.

Markowitz said ADOC will help users get the technologies they need, the application programming interfaces (APIs) to connect disparate data sets, address cybersecurity issues, including firewall roadblocks that may inhibit data sharing.

“The Army’s been playing with the idea of operational data teams. This is now a hub that will provide the grease and the organizational structure and leadership to make that happen,” he said. “We wanted an operational command, as opposed to the acquisition community, to actually run it because they’d be in tune with the operational needs. So Army Cyber, because they run Network Command (NETCOM), made sense and part of the move is to get the Army Enterprise Cloud Management Office involved so they’ll have the cloud activities to move some view of the internet connection. Army Cyber has full operational control of the network so how can we move them up the technology stack for both applications and data, so our soldiers don’t have to fish around for, who’s the right person. Now the Army has one group to go to.”

The Army’s CIO’s office is playing two key support roles in this effort.

First, Markowitz said the CIO’s office is overseeing the governance of the data.

“We’re trying to make sure that the right people responsible for data can be responsive to our warfighters, and it’s been amazing actually to see this kind of grow in time. We’ve had a lot of applications being built because we’ve now had a very robust data layer,” he said. “The secretary just signed a bi-directional directive to make sure all of our business systems interact with the data layer, so we can have this one place to kind of get our authoritative data. We’re now overhauling our data products, our most common used ones, based upon this growing demand of applications on our warfighting side.”

Creating an API marketplace

Additionally, the CIO’s office has created an API registration system called Operation Jailbreak.  This is the first-ever marketplace for APIs.

The jailbreaking operation is part of a larger initiative the Army is calling “right to integrate,” which aims to dramatically simplify and modernize the way systems share data with one another.

Markowitz said the Army still is in the early stages of that effort and how it will compliment the data layer, easing the integration and sharing of information.

“We want to make sure there’s a catalog that they get registered with, and industry does industry see it? Do our own soldiers and civilians see it?” he said. “We’re in the early process to at least mandate that if you’re going to come play with the Army, those APIs have to be exposed and shared to make sure that it builds our environment.”

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