Get Your Head in the Cloud Early

Cloud-Native Development Improves Operational Efficiency and Mission Readiness

These days, nearly everyone has some experience with the cloud. From email services such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail, to storage services such as iCloud, Google Drive, and Dropbox, more and more of our photos and electronic files are stored in the cloud every day. Not only does it save storage space on personal devices, but it also enables users to access their files from any device anywhere.

Federal Civilian Agencies, the Department of Defense (DoD), and the Intelligence Community (IC) have sought some of those same benefits of cloud computing, not only to save money, but also to more rapidly adopt emerging technologies to remain mission-ready. The “Cloud First Policy,” released by the White House in 2011, was created to “accelerate the pace at which the Federal Government realizes the value of Cloud Computing by requiring agencies to evaluate safe, secure, Cloud Computing options before making any new investments.”

That policy has led to many agencies migrating their existing IT infrastructures to the cloud. While migration is one option, it can still be costly, inefficient, and potentially result in downtime. In today’s rapidly evolving threat environment, downtime and its resulting mission impact isn’t really an option for the IC. 

Taking a page from Silicon Valley, starting with a cloud-native approach – with systems built and optimized for the cloud – can deliver added benefits to Federal Civilian, DoD, and IC customers.

An IC customer required a dynamic application that would provide real-time global situational awareness as a common operating picture to monitor enduring and emerging geopolitical threats. CACI developed a DevSecOps pipeline to design and deliver a cloud-native microservices-based web application that streams data real-time, both geospatially overlaid on a map and in an activity feed for non-geospatial data of interest.  A microservices-based architecture is scalable and enables development to support a range of platforms and devices as needs change.

This DevSecOps pipeline and microservice architecture enable CACI to deliver new releases into the production environment faster than would be possible in a hybrid architecture. The system is already demonstrating the benefits of a cloud-native architecture, including frequent rolling baseline updates that are achieved without system downtime. It has also proven secure and reliable, with observed downtime of less than half of one percent. A similar microservices-based architecture that uses replica data and rolling updates can be adopted by other customers to meet their mission-critical requirements.

A cloud-native approach is increasingly important as innovative capabilities such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced data analytics, and more are being developed and tested in the cloud. To remain not only mission-ready, but also mission-relevant, cloud-native development should be considered first.

CACI is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, Public Sector Partner, and Authorized Reseller and has developed secure, mission-critical cloud solutions for customers across all classification levels. CACI has planned and performed hundreds of cloud migrations, working in tandem with customers to develop secure and efficient cloud architectures while adhering to all regulatory and compliance requirements.

For more information about CACI’s cloud solutions contact [email protected].