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FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. — The U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command, a subordinate of the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, is creating an information technology, or IT, portfolio rationalization infrastructure to choose applications to move to the cloud that enable the Army Data Plan, support the Army Enterprise Data Service Catalog, enable data-driven decision making and are ready and willing to embrace software modernization efforts.

The work, which began in July 2020 and continues currently, is being done by the Fort Huachuca Engineering Directorate and Army Futures Command Headquarters Cloud and Data Management Directorate.

“The creation of cloud Army (cArmy, the Army’s enterprise cloud environment) and its subsequent variants allows for data consolidation, data science implementation, machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities to enable data-driven decision making,” said FloAnn Yoerg, USAISEC computer scientist/software engineer and cloud senior subject matter expert.

Despite its esoteric nature, the work USAISEC is doing has direct consequences for the warfighter.

“They have been asking for more automation and tools at their disposal, but with more and more of the budget being hogged by operation and maintenance, due to the exponential growth of our technical debt, the DoD has had limited ability to be able to meet these demands,” Yoerg explained. “Centralizing data for better decisions and reducing redundancy and duplication will free up IT dollars to give the warfighter the capabilities they need on the battlefield.”

“If data is the ammunition of the future fight, cloud is the magazine that holds those rounds,” said USAISEC Commander, Col. Daniel Wood. “Software are the weapon systems that will fire those rounds. We simply cannot operationalize data without leveraging cloud. We must divest of costly, inefficient, legacy network architectures and embrace new technologies, thoughtfully, in order to transition from the Industrial Age Army to an Information Age Army. USAISEC is at the forefront of modernizing our Army.”

USAISEC personnel have been embedded with the Army Futures Command Cloud and Data Management Directorate. Created by Yoerg and currently being executed from Fort Huachuca, the team has been operating remotely since its inception.

"As the Army transforms into a Multi-Domain Operations capable force USAISEC is committed to using our technical expertise to support organizations with harnessing the cloud to deliver on-demand software applications, data and infrastructure services,” said USAISEC Technical Director K. Brian Gold.

USAISEC has implemented a decision-making infrastructure to utilize the expertise of downtrace organizational personnel in order to strategically select applications. This infrastructure includes an executive steering committee, nine domain-specific communities of practice and an ever-deepening relationship with the Army Enterprise Cloud Management Agency where the USAISEC-created process, artifacts and infrastructure are being adopted at Army Headquarters.

This is a sea change in the way of doing business, but in such a large organization, that is never simple.

“We move slowly and it’s like turning an aircraft carrier, it doesn’t happen easily or quickly,” said Yoerg. “However, these changes are absolutely necessary in order to make portfolio decisions that don’t have negative impacts on our warfighters by removing a necessary capability just because it costs more than another tool. If we continue to make decisions based strictly on cost instead of mission enablement, we won’t be ready when our adversaries attack and it could put Soldiers in harm’s way.”

This is not a one-off. The idea is to build a process that reacts to Soldiers’ needs.

“USAISEC is developing repeatable services in this realm that vary from setting up the structure and training organic staff to run it into the future or to allow for USAISEC to become augmentation staff to operate the day-to-day structure for the customer organization,” said Yoerg. “It all depends on the needs/wants of the customer. This effort has enabled a partnership with ECMA that has allowed for the rest of the Army to see that USAISEC is a major player in the cloud ecosystem.”