As the Pentagon advances its zero trust architecture, senior military and industry officials said on Thursday that securely moving data to and from the tactical edge is emerging as a central operational challenge.
Speaking on Feb. 26 at GovCIO’s Defense IT Summit, Lt. Col. Benjamin Pimentel, assured command and control lead for the U.S. Marine Corps Project Dynamis, said the service’s modernization strategy hinges, in part, on securely moving mission data between edge environments and enterprise networks.
Pimentel described the effort as “bridging or convergence between edge networks, tactical position networks, and enterprise-level networks,” while extending enterprise identity and access management.
“I think we’re starting to see those come together in a way that we haven’t before,” Pimentel said.
It reflects a broader push across the Defense Department (DOD) to extend enterprise-grade identity, access controls, and data protections into previously disconnected tactical environments – a key requirement for zero trust architecture implementation.
The DOD – rebranded as the War Department by the Trump administration – has worked since 2022 to implement a departmentwide zero trust framework for its IT systems, with full adoption set for fiscal 2027.
Pimentel also emphasized that zero trust and data-centric operations at the edge depend on reliable data transport. “Data at rest is great,” he said, but it’s operationally meaningless if it cannot move securely to where it’s needed.
Bryan Thomas, vice president of U.S. public sector at Everpure, said commercial innovation is keeping pace with those demands, particularly in storage density and form factor.
“We are rapidly moving faster towards higher density capabilities, compute, and specifically storage in a much smaller form factor,” Thomas said. “So, we’re doubling drives every year.”
He pointed to direct flash modules that have increased storage capacity from roughly 75 terabytes to as much as 300 terabytes per drive – enabling service members to carry significantly more mission data into forward environments.
Beyond deploying edge hardware, Thomas said the next phase is building a software-driven “intelligent control” layer that connects distributed users through a data fabric. That layer would automatically move workloads to where they are needed and enable secure access with minimal human intervention.
Michael Frank, deputy chief technology officer for the Navy, underscored the operational need for multiple transport paths to ensure operational resilience.
“If one goes down, you’ve got other options,” Frank said.
While duplicating data across environments can create storage burdens, Frank argued that pushing compute power to the edge allows human operators or autonomous systems to make decisions locally when connectivity is degraded.
“There is a piece of operational resiliency that doesn’t rely on the transport coming back,” Frank said. “It really is decision-making at the edge.”