FEDTECH: How does edge computing enable connectivity in areas with challenging network environments?
Cossa: We’re looking at this beyond just terrestrial circuits and exploring different means of adopting new technology, such as 5G and more advanced satellite communications, and then how to protect that information. Security goes hand in hand with the new communication methods that we’re looking to deploy. It’s also about resiliency. How do we get JWICS to the steady state where we were 30 years ago while taking JWICS to that next level and factoring in multifaceted dependencies? That’s the challenge we’re solving.
FEDTECH: We’re in a world where everybody is moving to zero trust. What does that look like at DIA?
Cossa: We’re different from many other agencies because we not only operate the wide area network, but we also run the DoD Intelligence Information System, which is our local area network environment and desktop system. When we talk about zero trust at more basic levels, we must do things like encryption on both JWICS and our local networks. We have to do threat isolation on both networks at the hardware level. It’s well beyond what a traditional agency would have to consider. That’s where we get into digital policy, actually putting forth those guidelines. We know everything and everyone on our network who is connecting or attempting to connect, and we interact as needed as the mission changes.
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FEDTECH: DOD at large has decided to use a joint warfighting cloud capability and embrace a multicloud environment. How does that affect DIA?
Cossa: Connecting to the cloud isn’t instantaneous. There needs to be an infrastructure, a foundation in place to do that right now. We serve customers all over the world, particularly the combatant commands who have a need for cloud storage and cloud services. JWICS creates on-ramps to those cloud services and as we expand overseas; that’s particularly important for edge nodes.