Achieving the Army's data imperatives at the tactical edge with Elastic

A modified version of this blog post appeared in the August 2021 issue of Signal magazine.

As the Industrial Age Army transforms to the Information Age Army, Army leadership recognizes the need for adaptable technologies that enable data exchange at the tactical edge. Not only must these technologies be in lock step with the 8 guiding principles of the DoD Data Strategy, but they must also deliver on the Army’s data imperatives of speed, scale and resilience.

At Elastic, our role is to help commanders and warfighters use data as a force multiplier with a powerful search platform that securely makes multi-domain data accessible and actionable, enables real-time situational awareness for faster OODA loops, and detects the adversary across domains of responsibility with machine learning. Our free and open platform addresses the Army’s data imperatives both individually and holistically and is flexible to take on new use cases in demanding, and sometimes austere, environments.

1. Speed. Our goal is to make the speed to insight as simple as possible. Providing tools like schema on write or schema on read to speed up data ingest, a common schema to normalize data, and autocomplete functionality to make user interfaces more intuitive, we help Cyber Protection Teams (CPTs) and Mission Defense Teams (MDTs) do what they do best, faster.
2. Scale. Through a combination of cross-cluster replication and cross-cluster search, we facilitate data visibility at scale by enabling local data access and querying on remote clusters with powerful search functionality using role-based security controls. When replication is required, data can be replicated using uni-directional and bi-directional data streams. We also employ the frozen tier so that older data is fully active and searchable for longer periods of time.   

3. Resilience. The modern battlefield needs agile solutions that function as well in fully connected environments as they do in disconnected, intermittent and limited (DIL) environments. We provide warfighters with the ability to run machine learning models locally on endpoints, functional even when network communications are down, to protect distributed assets at the edge while assuring a common operations picture. 

By achieving the data imperatives of speed, scale, and resilience at the tactical edge, commanders and warfighters are armed with the insight to speed up OODA loops. This information advantage will help the Army prevail in any situation.

To learn more about how Elastic helps the Army achieve its data imperatives at the tactical edge, read the full article in the August 2021 issue of Signal magazine or visit elastic.co/industries/public-sector/defense. To schedule a demonstration at the Association of the US Army Annual Meeting (October 11-13), email our Army mission support team at [email protected].  

• Blog: Achieving the 8 guiding principles of the DoD’s Data Strategy with Elastic
• Blog: Schema on write or schema on read - why not both?
• Webinar: Operating a globally distributed Elastic platform
• Documentation: Enable cross-cluster search and cross-cluster replication