MilCloud provides military with on-demand infrastructure and network management tools through web-based interface.

The Department of Defense (DOD) is rolling out a brand new cloud computing service as element of its ongoing efforts to trim IT costs and supply more streamlined services to its military and civilian users. The service, called MilCloud, provides an integrated suite of capabilities, including the power for users to configure infrastructure resources and manage applications on a self-service basis.

Developed by the Defense Information Systems Agency, the DOD agency liable for managing the military’s communications infrastructure, MilCloud represents the most recent effort by DOD to cut back IT costs. But DISA officials also claim the service will provide agencies with more flexibility and control over how they manage their computing environments.

The cloud service also helps DISA improve IT security safeguards by standardizing how classified and unclassified data are processed and stored.

“MilCloud allows us to… integrate various applications on the CDC [core data center] level,” DISA’s chief of staff, brigadier general Frederick Henry, said last week at an annual event for presidency and industry executives that do business with the army.

[How the Navy proposes to trim $1.5 billion from its IT budget: Navy Eyes Cloud Storage]

Henry said MilCloud can deliver cloud services and support DOD applications for roughly an identical cost as providers reminiscent of Amazon, “but in a safer fashion.”

MilCloud forms the muse of the Joint Information Environment’s core datacenter service and represents one a part of a broader effort to attach all the military services’ networks right into a single, secure information-sharing space. DISA officials say that MilCloud’s infrastructure incorporates strict security protocols that keep data secure within the DOD’s core datacenters.

MilCloud also can support DOD organizations and army personnel anywhere on earth, using loads of authorized desktop and handheld devices. Its features include:

• On-demand self-service — Users can place orders via web-based self-service tools, configure infrastructure resources, and manage mission applications running on those resources without manual intervention from DISA support staff.
• Broad network access — All MilCloud services are connected to the dept of Defense Information Networks (DODIN) and meet DOD security guidelines and protocols.
• Resource pooling — MilCloud resources are pooled, permitting multiple users to access services for more efficient and versatile use of resources.
• Rapid elasticity — By way of virtual resource pools, MilCloud can rapidly expand or collapse available resources to satisfy demand.

MilCloud allows the army services and other DOD agencies to manage their data and their applications. The cloud service features a shared, virtual computing environment is known as a virtual datacenter (VDC). Based on DISA officials, the VDC is “virtual floor space” analogous to an enclave in a physical datacenter. The VDC allows users to administer, compute, store, and network resources as had to support their systems. VDC resources are accessed through a self-service, on-demand, web-based management interface that permits users to directly order, provision, and manage their VDC resources.

The military services and their agencies — what DISA calls its mission partners — are accountable for the safety and certification in their individual VDCs. Users can configure and manage their resources in a VDC themselves, or resources could be automatically be configured by MilCloud’s Orchestrator function.

Orchestrator streamlines and automates the management of functions regarding building, testing, and migrating configurations in a VDC. The services can use a suite of “recipes” or create their very own recipes of assets, equivalent to virtual machines, software packages, and configuration scripts, DISA officials said. The MilCloud Orchestrator then executes these recipes on demand.

Orchestrator also automates labor-intensive and repetitive activities comparable to functional regression testing after an application was changed. DISA officials note that environmental recipes is also published as baselines or minimum system requirements. Administrators can control how recipes are shared and made available to other users in MilCloud.

Henry says MilCloud also features a central help desk providing continuous Level II/Tier I through III support. The cloud service is obtainable at the DOD’s unclassified NIPRNET and may be ordered through DISA’s Cloud Services Marketplace, in line with a DISA news release.

Find out how a central authority program is putting cloud computing at the fast track to higher security. Also within the Cloud Security issue of InformationWeek Government: Defense CIO Teri Takai on why FedRAMP helps everyone.

Henry Kenyon is a contributing writer to InformationWeek Government. He has covered Government IT and Defense markets since 1999 for quite a few publications including Government Computer News, Federal Computer Week, AFCEA’s Signal Magazine and AOL Government. View Full Bio

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