Speaking during a Defense News livestream at the Association of the United States Army’s Annual Meeting on Monday, Brandon Pugh, the Army’s principal cyber advisor, outlined plans to overhaul how the service manages its expanding data enterprise.
Pugh revealed that the Army is in active discussions about establishing Army data operation centers or commands to bring a unified, global approach to data management.
“We’ve been thinking very heavily on creating these Army data operation center or commands, that we can go all in and look at that across the board,” Pugh said.
While no formal announcements were made, Pugh confirmed that development teams will be formed in the coming weeks to define the structure and scope of these centers.
“I don’t want to break any news right now, but it’s coming,” he said.
The envisioned system would span all operational theaters and be tightly integrated with joint, coalition, and combatant command (COCOM) data streams.
“We’re fighting in the COCOM environment … So, you have to go from your Army environment to your joint environment, to your coalition, and into your COCOM environment,” Pugh explained.
Emphasizing the scale of the challenge, he stated, “We don’t have a data problem. We have a data management problem.”
He called on industry partners to support the Army’s efforts, noting the exponential growth in data and the need for oversight as the service begins to onboard some major initiatives – such as the next-generation command and control systems.
“It’s all about data,” Pugh concluded.