Red Hat’s Sam Richman on Need to Address Data Challenge in Joint All-Domain C2 Implementation

Sam Richman, a senior solution architect for the U.S. Air Force at Red Hat, wrote in a commentary published Tuesday on Defense Systems that a Joint All-Domain Command and Control infrastructure should be implemented in a way that addresses the challenge of collecting and integrating disparate data and delivering the right information to warfighters to help them make decisions.

“Any JADC2 implementation must account for the demands of a large number of disaggregated, attritable assets, all producing and consuming data that must be exchanged between themselves and C2 assets in a frictionless manner,” Richman wrote.

He said building JADC2 calls for developers to reduce the friction and gravity of applications and data architectures.

“If applications and data are not architected in a way to reduce both their gravity and friction, they inevitably fail because they cannot scale or freely share data,” Richman said. “While service outages may be marginally acceptable in consumer applications, this is untenable for warfighters and will greatly inhibit what JADC2 is intended to achieve.”

He discussed the use of microservices hosted on a scalable, agile architecture and data in motion to develop modern applications.

“Defense applications built using microservices and given real-time access to data can deliver similar benefits to the globally distributed, multi-domain world of modern warfare,” Richman added.