Software

How Red Hat OpenShift Helps DOD at the Tactical Edge

The cloud-native platform’s scale and speed support app deployment on edge hardware even in disconnected environments.

Adam Stone writes on technology trends from Annapolis, Md., with a focus on government IT, military and first-responder technologies.

The Department of Defense is teaming up with Red Hat to ensure warfighters have reliable access to digital applications at the tactical edge.

Denied, disrupted, intermittent and limited environments present unique challenges as warfighters attempt to execute their national security mission sets.

Critical network resources may be unreliable, unpredictable or simply unavailable in DDIL situations.

“Whether it’s boots on the ground, ships at sea or jets in the air, connectivity and bandwidth are more important than ever,” says Adam Ullrich, Red Hat senior solutions specialist for public sector at CDW Government.

DISCOVER: Red Hat solutions can help your agency manage complex IT environments.

Virtualization Removes Hypervisors From the App Equation

“Warfighters at the edge need applications that are fast, agile and lightweight. They need tools that can be spun up and down at any time, whenever they are needed,” Ullrich says. “Otherwise, you run the risk of vital information not getting through.”

DOD can leverage a cloud-native platform’s scale and speed to support deployment of containerized apps. They run on edge hardware, even when disconnected from central data centers.

“For the DOD, a cloud-native infrastructure with virtualization offers a way to overcome those DDIL challenges,” Ullrich says.

Virtualization allows for flexible resource allocation and workload consolidation in connectivity-deprived situations. This, in turn, ensures apps can run at the edge, delivering mission-relevant capabilities with the resources available.

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Apps typically depend on hypervisors, which need to be tied to a physical machine.

“A containerized app contains all of the dependencies, but without the hypervisor weighing it down,” Ullrich says.

Red Hat OpenShift Automates the Entire App Lifecycle

Red Hat OpenShift is a comprehensive, enterprise-grade Kubernetes platform designed to simplify the development, deployment and management of containerized apps. OpenShift ensures reliability in DDIL environments.

“It leverages Kubernetes for things like health checks, automated failover and rolling updates,” Ullrich says. “All of that will essentially help to maintain that service.”

The military’s software development and delivery processes are always challenged by speed.”

Adam Ullrich Red Hat Senior Solutions Specialist for Public Sector, CDW Government

Automation plays a key role here.

“Software needs to be updated and patched. It needs to be configured and deployed,” Ullrich says. “At the tactical edge, you want to minimize all of those manual processes.”

When OpenShift is paired with the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, the ability to stage and deploy apps remotely dramatically reduces the burden on warfighters at the tactical edge. Red Hat can automate the entire lifecycle of apps.

UP NEXT: Automation can help agencies manage threat alerts.

OpenShift and Kubernetes further deliver the continuous monitoring needed to ensure app performance at the edge.

“It can help detect a failure as soon as it happens,” Ullrich says.

Self-healing then kicks in, remediating issues at the speed of mission — effectively negating many of the issues that can arise in DDIL environments.

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Multiple Support Models and Compliance Features

In OpenShift, the DOD gains access to an enterprise-level platform and all of the support that comes with that. This can be live support eight hours a day, five days a week or 24/7 to help ensure the reliability of mission-critical capabilities.

Moreover, OpenShift is built to meet the military’s strict needs around security and compliance. It’s hardened to meet standards for the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Security Technical Implementation Guides, Federal Information Processing Standards and zero-trust requirements, and it enables microsegmentation, secure zones and policy-based access control even in disconnected deployments.

“The military’s software development and delivery processes are always challenged by speed,” Ullrich says. “They need to address vulnerabilities in real time, while also delivering warfighting capabilities to operational forces.”

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