Presented by Omnissa
For data to truly serve as the tip of the spear in modern conflict, its interpretation must be absolutely uniform across all branches of the military. Chris Betz, Global Field CISO at Omnissa, stresses the extreme dangers of operating unique, isolated systems downrange. "If you've got a bunch of snowflake architectures or unique architectures that are out there that are ingesting that data differently, they're obviously going to output that data differently," Betz warns. To fix this inconsistency, the DoD must aggressively rationalize its tool sets, eliminate technological overlap, and consolidate onto unified platforms.
This back-to-basics focus on a solid, enterprise-wide architecture is absolutely essential for enabling seamless communication across all domains—from land to sea, and air to space. It is also highly critical for the future deployment of autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence at the tactical edge. As the military seeks to operate in remote environments without needing constant cloud connectivity, the focus will shift heavily to localized processing. "I think you're going to see a lot of agentic AI that's processing that data locally in real time, without having to phone back home at the edge," Betz explains. To enable this, vendors must ensure their software features robust on-premise SaaS capabilities.
To support this vision of seamless cross-service interoperability, defense contractors must commit to developing highly flexible software. Whether an application is running for the Air Force, the Army, or the Marines, it must be completely agnostic to the underlying infrastructure. Software must be developed so that "whether it's a hyperscaler or hypervisor or containers based... regardless of what that core underlying platform or architecture is, you should have software that can integrate with it and run on top of that so that it's consistent," Betz states. This ensures that as mission requirements evolve over the next five to ten years, the military can adapt without having to build new systems entirely from scratch.