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Delivered by Program Executive Office for Digital and Enterprise Services (PEO Digital), the Flank Speed Azure environment offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) compute, store and network services to accommodate DoD Impact Level (IL 5) – Higher Sensitivity Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), Mission Critical Information and National Security Systems.
"I'm excited about the new capabilities Flank Speed Azure brings to the Department of the Navy," said Ruth Youngs Lew, Program Executive Officer, PEO Digital. “Having Azure open for business allows us to continually transform how we deliver, protect and manage access to data and applications across all mission areas."
Additional services, including Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) toolchains for Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) development, security and operations (DevSecOps), will be available in the near future, followed by an instance for Secret (IL6) workloads later in Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23). The Flank Speed environment also provides critical enablers such as Azure Active Directory, Azure Data Fabric and Power Platform. Integration with Naval Identity Services is on the horizon, and Nautilus Virtual Desktop, with over 25,000 users enrolled, is en route to 50,000 by the end of FY23.
Louis Koplin, who serves as Deputy Department of the Navy (DON) Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and acting Portfolio Manager for Platform Application Services at PEO Digital, said that Flank Speed Azure represents a major leap forward for our ability to deliver world-class enterprise cloud services.
"We are well past the crawl and walk phases of cloud, and it is time to run at flank speed toward harnessing the power of cloud-native architectures to modernize our information environments, applications and data," he said.
Since the DON began implementing its Information Superiority Vision (ISV) – which conveys the Department’s vision for information superiority through information, modernized network design and workforce – three years ago, several other policy and concept documents emerged to highlight the central importance of cloud and cloud-native architectures for achieving information superiority to produce combat advantage, including the DON Cloud Policy, December 2020; the Capstone Design Concept for Information Superiority, September 2022; and the Major Design Concept to Optimize the DON Information Environment for Cloud, January 2023.
In keeping with the DON’s vision of information superiority, Flank Speed Azure offers several advantages to Navy mission owners, from a comprehensive Authority to Operate (ATO) to cost-effective rates leveraging PEO Digital's Strategy Sourcing Services' enterprise agreement to inheriting the zero trust identity and cybersecurity features for dynamic and conditional access. These exemplify PEO Digital's technology vision, Modern Service Delivery, which ensures strategic alignment, interoperability and integration for all services across the DON and DoD.
Adopting Flank Speed Azure is the logical next step to enhancing Flank Speed's Microsoft 365 Cloud collaboration suite.
"Azure propels Flank Speed to the next level. It's like a toolbox with everything a computer programmer might need to build complex and customized solutions," said Kory Bennett, the Navy's Flank Speed Azure Product Owner. "Just like how you might use different tools to build something, programmers use another part of Azure to create and run their programs."
To learn more about Flank Speed Azure or join an Ask Me Anything session, please visit the Azure Mission Owner Site on Flank Speed Hub at https://flankspeed.sharepoint-mil.us/sites/Flank_Speed_Hub/SitePages/Flank-Speed-Mission-Owner-Site.aspx or visit the service catalog at https://flankspeed.sharepoint-mil.us.mcas-gov.us/sites/Flank_Speed_Hub/SitePages/Azure-SrvCatalog.aspx, or email at fs-azure@us.navy.mil.
Originally published in CHIPS Magazine: https://www.doncio.navy.mil/chips/ArticleDetails.aspx?ID=16269