Data Virtualization in Support of DoD Cloud Strategies

Data Virtualization in Support of DoD Cloud Strategies PT I DEEPINDER UPPAL

The Department of Defense Data Strategy calls for organizations to support global, standards-based cloud environments where data assets are universally accessible, secure, and interoperable. However, data silos, esoteric access protocols and complex logical interfaces for application stacks makes this vision difficult to achieve for most organizations. Moreover, the cost requirements to buildout huge, extensible infrastructure pieces coupled with a need to have highly specialized personal to create, maintain and support data migration, integration and the creation of logical views, -not to mention the cost of maintaining multiple tools, environments and licensing models often make this proposal untenable. Additionally, traditional methodologies to integrate, orchestrate, and present data assets take an extended time to develop solutions, raise many questions on data governance & security, and are inherently architecturally complex. Coordinating these legacy efforts is also people and resources intensive. Balancing resource-intensive efforts against financial constraints in a complex environment often means fewer resources are available to meet new business needs.

Data virtualization provides a solution, -whether a DoD organization is moving data to the tactical edge, operating in a disconnected state, or providing data to data scientists for process analysis & improvements in multitenant cloud environments. Data virtualization is a meta-data integration technique that provides complete, high-quality, and actionable information to any destination or application through the virtual integration of meta-data across multiple, disparate internal/external sources, domains, and environments. Data virtualization creates a virtual or logical data store. In other words, data virtualization leaves source data in place and uses a set of virtual metadata and data services to access, integrate, orchestrate, and present assets to users and their applications.

Understanding Data Virtualization: the DoD Open Gateway Data virtualization is a data integration technique that provides actionable information through virtual integration of metadata across multiple, disparate internal and external data

sources. Data virtualization is implemented using middleware technology that connects to

data sources, executes queries to retrieve requested meta attributes, combines or federates this metadata with other attributes, abstracts and transforms the metadata to conform to the business information need and then delivers the insights directly to the consuming application.

By leveraging high-performance software and advanced computing architecture to virtualize and maintain a virtual integration layer between consumers and existing sources. DoD programs avoids the need for physical data consolidation, replicated data storage, the creation & maintenance of large data reservoirs, and the buildout of large infrastructure pieces as DoD organizations and affiliates on-board addition services and external groups (tenants) within their cloud environments.

The DoD Open Gateway (cont.)

This process also clearly establishes the role of DoD projects that support multi tenancy cloud initiatives such as CDO VAULT, Cloud One, US Army’s VAUTIS, or even the State Department’s vision of a multitenant data fabric. The primary objects created and used in data virtualization are meta-views and data services. These objects encapsulate the logic necessary to navigate access security, federate, transform and abstract source data and deliver assets anywhere -from source all the way to the tactical edge.

Thus, saving organizations the need to support ever-changing ETL processes, maintain complex logical views, or purchase multiple software packages for specific use cases. In essence: data virtualization enables the organization to accelerate delivery of new and revised services & solutions, provide faster source access, virtualize data to, or from, any location, including edge sites, all while reducing both initial and ongoing costs.

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