DISA's MilCloud 2.0 migration is moving forward

The Defense Information Systems Agency is just about halfway through its mandatory migration of non-military defense agencies to MilCloud 2.0. So far the agency is pushing forward with classified system capabilities and making sure the large Fourth Estate agencies begin migrating later this year.

Caroline Bean, DISA's MilCloud deputy program manager and lead engineer, talked to FCW about the program after her presentation at GDIT Emerge 2019 on April 24.

First, MilCloud 2.0 will roll out Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) impact level 6 for classified data this summer. MilCloud already supports impact level 5 for unclassified workloads.

But the main focus is preparing defense headquarters agencies – including DISA itself -- for the migration.

"Things from onboarding to security to operationalizing it, all of those are going to be challenges for each of the Fourth Estate agencies to take a look at what they're doing, figuring out how to streamline to move to the cloud," Bean said. "We're helping them generate those lessons learned and passing those along."

The biggest challenges so far are with application rationalization and getting the Fourth Estate agencies to a point where they know what they have and how to move it to MilCloud. DISA is having them look at their contracts, budgets, learning what the cloud is, and how to mesh what they have with where they're going.

"All these migrations -- the migration piece is the hard part," Bean said, adding that most agencies are in the planning phases on only beginning implementation. There are more than 2,000 workloads already in MilCloud 2.0 today, but most of those agencies are "getting a feel for what MilCloud 2.0 is."

By the end of fiscal 2019, however, Bean said the big Fourth Estate agencies, like Defense Logistics Agency, will start migrating to MilCloud 2.0.

This article was first posted to FCW, a sibling site to Defense Systems.