Army ECMA CReATE
The Department of Defense requires software products that meet the needs of its various users and missions, and they are creating software factories to ensure industry best practices and technologies are used in this IT modernization effort. DoD is leaning in on digital transformation, and the US Army created the Enterprise Cloud Management Agency and Army Software Factory to help lead this change.
We are proud to be supporting the Army’s modernization efforts at ECMA by building the tools, creating the documentation, and working with soldiers that rotate through ASWF to learn and practice modern software development methods.
What We Delivered
ECMA and ASWF created a DevSecOps pipeline, called the Code Resource and Transformation Environment (CReATE). CReATE is helping to rapidly and securely deliver modern and secure applications to users. CReATE is not only supporting new, novel applications created to support emerging defense needs, but also to ensure existing systems can be rapidly modernized, better maintained, and more easily secured. We are bringing our expertise in User Centered Design to ensure that the customers deploying applications on CReATE have a smooth and meaningful experience. Our experience and expertise in DevSecOps methods and tools ensures that the applications deployed on CReATE can be readily updated and improved, more easily changed to address evolving security threats, and rapidly delivered to their users.
Organizations in the Army looking to modernize their digital capabilities are at various stages of improvement, with some just beginning their journey, while others have mature agile processes and DevSecOps tools in place. To help serve these organizations, we are supporting a diverse set of services to help meet these organizations where they are at. This includes hosting a full DevSecOps platform to support continuous integration and delivery of applications. We are also supporting the provision of productivity tools, hosting of existing containers, provision of kubernetes clusters, and enabling the push of source code to production. We are working with ASWF and ECMA leadership to help shift security to the left. This includes our support to security activities embedded within each of these services, to include scans, automation, documentation, enablement, and tools necessary to enable software developers to build with security in mind.
Impact
Our efforts supporting ASWF and ECMA has allowed CReATE to onboard 229 application teams, with 15 in production under the CReATE ATO. Teams in production are serving over 11,000 users, improving the lives of Soldiers all around the world. Our support of self service activities within ECMA is supporting 9 major commands, including AFC, AMC, ARCYBER, USACE, HQDA, TRADOC, among others. We are supporting 978 Jira and 1263 Gitlab users across the Army. We have also assisted ASWF in the development of their playbook to support their need for Continuous Authority to Operate (cATO).
The Bright Future
ECMA and ASWF continue to lean in on digital modernization, with new cohorts planned and programs across the Army continue to look towards CReATE as a means of supporting their users and application modernization needs. Our support of ECMA has expanded to include their Cloud Enablement Division (CED), where we are helping ECMA better manage the onboarding experience of new organizations from across the Army. Our partnership with them allows us to iteratively improve the self-service and DevSecOps tools supporting their modernization efforts. ECMA, ASWF, and the service members that rely on the applications supported by CReATE are all benefiting from Omni’s experience and expertise in user centered, agile methods. DevSecOps and UCD are ensuring positive outcomes for the Army!