The Army is planning to invest more than $290 million to support cloud computing migration efforts over the next year, the service’s under secretary said Thursday.
Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo told attendees at an AFCEA NOVA event the cloud migration push follows the Army’s effort to migrate over 230 legacy applications to the cloud to date, while adopting cloud-based software development for all new applications.
“The Army has a whole host of legacy applications and providing some more central funding for those migration activities I think is critical to our success. I think it’s foundational, is the term that I use. So we’re going to continue to plan for that,” Camarillo told reporters following his remarks at the event in McLean, Virginia.
The Army’s migration to the cloud coincides with its ongoing effort to scale the “cArmy” enterprise cloud solution, with the service working to leverage capabilities from multiple cloud service providers.
“We have a very well-thought out strategy that is premised on a hybrid, multi-cloud, multi-vendor environment. And the Army’s global cloud, the cArmy, is the foundation of our digital transformation that enables, in many ways, that seamless data sharing between tactical and enterprise systems, promoting interoperability by sharing common services and reducing the time that is required to develop software solutions that are needed by our warfighters,” Camarillo said during his remarks.
Camarillo told reporters it’s too early to project what the Army’s cloud funding will look like in FY ’24, with the service still finalizing its budget request, but said he wants to ensure there’s a consistent and steady level of centralized resources” for priorities related to the cloud.
The Army’s Digital Transformation Strategy, released in October 2021, detailed cArmy as a “hybrid global cloud that is resilient, secure, and able to share computing and storage resources seamlessly for enterprise and tactical applications” (Defense Daily, Oct. 20 2021).
Raj Iyer, Army’s outgoing chief information officer, said in April of last year the Army is “about halfway” to establishing its multi-cloud computing ecosystem (Defense Daily, April 14 2022).
In October, Iyer detailed the Army’s plan to pursue the multi-award Enterprise Application Migration and Modernization program worth up to $1 billion to help support development of the cloud ecosystem and bolster migration efforts.
Iyer, who was the Army’s first civilian CIO, announced Jan. 4 his plans to step down from his post in the coming weeks (Defense Daily, Jan. 6).