Key Takeaways from DoDIIS Worldwide Conference

By Stephanie Meloni, Consultant

The intelligence community (IC) isn’t using enough predictive analytics to stay ahead of threats, said senior government leaders at last week’s Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems Worldwide Conference in Atlanta.

Senior DOD and IC leaders speaking at the conference pointed to several other key IT priorities for enhancing future operations, along with the challenges they face. Data integration and decision making, as well as cyber, were central to their strategies.

Here are some key takeaways for technology companies that work with the IC:

Big Data and Analytics: The IC wants to use its data to stay ahead of threats. Senior leaders say organizations are still not performing enough predictive analytics, and need to shift operations to become more “data-centric”. Technology companies will want to approach government customers with solutions that will make it easier for IC analysts to query and work with their data, while taking the heavier lift analysis piece off of their plates. Machine learning and a need for more data scientists are two other items on the IC’s wish list for analytics.

Business and Operations: Mission-specific applications will remain important to all agencies within the IC, even as government customers utilize AppsMall, where commonly used applications can be hosted and downloaded. Applications integration, development, and lifecycle management will continue to be an IT priority. All of these mission-specific applications, regardless of whether they migrate to a shared environment or not, will still require improvements and continuous updates to user interfaces.

Cyber: Threats are continuously evolving and cyber resilience is at the top of the IC’s priorities. The low barrier to entry when it comes to cyber-attacks is a major concern—the IC is seeking solutions to enhance information sharing about cyber threats that can then be connected to operational forces.

Cloud: This will continue to be central to the Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise (IC ITE). The two cloud environments available to IC ITE users are the Central Intelligence Agency’s Commercial Cloud Services (C2S) and the National Security Agency’s GovCloud. Both cover computation and big data analytics respectively. As more applications migrate to IC ITE, DOD intelligence and information systems will still retain select computing environments for servers and mission specific applications.

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