Disruptive Thinking About Data

Time is a weapon, and data unlocks its power. Yet for too long, vital information has been locked in disconnected systems, depriving critical missions of strategic intelligence. But what if we thought differently—aligning processes around data rather than focusing on prying data out of siloed networks? We could then take lessons from the success of the internet to dominate the cognitive future of war.

One of my personal memories illustrates the long-standing urgency: On 9/11, I had just rolled off a project at the World Trade Center—but many of my colleagues were in the Twin Towers as the tragic drama unfolded. New York phone service was down, both land and cell lines, but the internet was up and running. I vividly remember calling my team members’ families from my office near DC, helping them set up AOL Instant Messenger accounts, and creating group chats to give live updates until we had confirmed all were safe.

Motivated by the experience, I followed the 9/11 Commission proceedings as they unfolded. When the conclusions were published, I especially noted the key communication recommendation: unity of effort in sharing information. Some of the main points:

• Replace the “need to know” practice of sharing information with a “need to share” culture
• Create a top-down initiative to bring national security institutions into the information revolution
• Turn mainframe, siloed systems into a decentralized network

More than two decades later, many of these challenges remain, overshadowed by the urgent priorities of fighting two wars. Now the Department of Defense (DOD) is navigating a technical race with near-peer competitors, and the same problems persist:

• Differing standards and policies
• Overclassification of information
• No incentive to share

Here’s the good news: As technology has advanced, a viable solution is at hand—if we are open to thinking about data differently.

We’ve complicated the problem with jargon. In conversations with clients and industry, I see us talking past each other. We loosely use terms like distributed, federated, virtualized, synchronized, replicated, and others; we talk about solutions (i.e., cloud, fabric, mesh). It’s time to simplify. Let’s start with the fundamentals.

What’s the essence? It’s that data gives us the information to make actionable decisions—it’s therefore a strategic asset. Yet, although technology has evolved—from mainframes to client/server to web-based to cloud, and so on—we have not matured data architectures. We continue to replicate the same siloed network architectures.

This chains us to outdated and restrictive information sharing policies; duplicating efforts via copying the same data over and over—redeveloping the extract, transfer, load (ETL) scripts each time; increasing complexity of data pedigree and lineage; and taking up analysts’ time with manual processing instead of freeing them to chase game-changing insights.

Instead, let’s simplify. Now is the age of microservices, modularization of data domains, and flexible data processes. So let’s envision a new way to move ahead. Let’s think of each piece of data as an element of DOD’s digital universe. In the most basic terms, two primary data patterns act as “bookends”:

• Bring the data to the process—the current paradigm; copying data to a centralized data platform to be accessed and processed for each unique mission.
• Bring the process to the data—the emerging pattern; with data automatically being captured at an exponential rate, bring the process to the point of data collection so we don’t “cripple the internet.”

Getting back to 9/11, where the internet was the most resilient channel: What if we replicated the model of the internet by creating a Data Domain Name System (D-DNS)?

DOD originally created the internet to allow practitioners to access research. Later, usage exploded via the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). I remember typing in specific internet protocol (IP) addresses for my own research. When DNS was introduced, it transformed my experience—suddenly I could type in a domain name instead of a numeric IP.

Applying this proven approach would set data free. What if we stood up a Data DNS (DDNS):

• The data steward registers the data domain name with lightweight descriptors such as data source description, access, self-describing scheme, and policy.
• Built around a blockchain-ledger architecture, the DDNS allows data to be securely discovered and accessed where the data persists, without copying the data—whether from a laptop at the heart of the enterprise or a mobile device at the tactical edge.

Keeping our discussion at the level of strategic simplicity, we can see how this data-centric approach would enable information sharing at the speed of mission—and winning at the speed of action. Data at rest would be stored securely. Accessing and optimizing it would consist of three phases:

1. Integrate—Onboard new feeds from diverse sources via modular containers and store them, enforcing data policies and providing granular security.
2. Discover—By registering the data using a D-DNS as detailed above, we could make data discoverable where it persists. Data would not need to be moved; it would be accessed in the same way you access the latest news on your cell phone.
3. Synchronize—A flexible data architecture provides rapid ingestion, synchronizing while simplifying sharing across nodes—whether for modeling and simulation, human performance analytics, training machine learning algorithms, or another objective.

The U.S. is at an inflection point. DOD is augmenting traditional weapons with digital capabilities. Instead of trying to make disparate digital architectures compatible, let’s forge the future—with the power of open, modular cognitive solutions.