Intel cloud

Intelligence community launches classified marketplace for cloud technology

The U.S. intelligence community has just opened a new marketplace for cloud applications, the idea being to let analysts and developers test-drive thousands of commercial data analytic tools for a pittance and without waiting for their agencies to make large commitments of time and money via usual government procurement channels.

The marketplace, which opened last week, is integrated into the private cloud that Amazon Web Services built for the Central Intelligence Agency as part of the Intelligence Community Information Technology Environment (ICITE). The classified storefront is modeled on the one Amazon uses for its public cloud, which lets developers and users “pay by the drink” while they’re evaluating various software tools, development platforms and even entire operating systems. IC staff will get access to those tools instantaneously rather than having to wait for the government acquisition process to procure them one by one.

Intel cloud

Intelligence System Moving to the Cloud 

As more engineers transfer defense networks to cloud computing, developers of a decades-old intelligence system are embracing the move.

The joint deployable intelligence support system, which was created in 1992, connects deployed troops with the military’s top-secret network known as the joint worldwide intelligence communications system, or JWICS, said Navy Cmdr. Brian Hoffer, program manager for JDISS.

“It arose after the Gulf War as a need to get intelligence into the hands of the warfighter,” he said. “Complementary to that network was the need to get a one-size-fits-all intelligence workstation to hang on the edge of the network.”

At the time, JDISS was a physical box or workstation where service members could create intelligence documents and send information from system to system, he said. Now, JDISS — which includes a number of applications — has gone from hardware to software.