General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) is among the major systems integrators that have chosen D2iQ to create Kubernetes solutions for their U.S. military customers.
I spoke with Todd Bracken, GDIT DevSecOps Capability Lead for Defense, about the reasons GDIT chose D2iQ and the types of solutions his group was creating for U.S. military modernization programs using the D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP).
Bracken said the reason GDIT chose DKP as the basis for its Kubernetes solutions was the successful deployment of DKP within the DoD’s Platform One program, a shared resource that provides DevSecOps managed services for the DoD and other defense agencies.
“D2iQ’s reputation within the Platform One program was enough to steer us towards adopting DKP,” said Bracken. “The D2iQ solutions created within the DoD Software Factories provide consistency and standardization for Kubernetes deployments across the DoD,” he explained.
DKP Proves Its Mettle
Bracken said the initial DKP deployments that GDIT created for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Platform One program have proven their mettle by running securely and resiliently for three years. This success, said Bracken, along with accelerating demand for Kubernetes within the DoD, has led more groups within the U.S. defense industry to engage GDIT to create DKP-based solutions.
“DKP gives GDIT a secure, reliable, scalable, open, and production-ready platform on which to create Kubernetes solutions for our government clients,” said Bracken. The fact that DKP is based on pure CNCF-conformant Kubernetes was another important factor, as was DKP’s first-class support for air-gapped environments, he added.
Security was another major factor. “Ensuring high levels of security is a key requirement for government implementations, and GDIT is able to provide first-class support for air-gapped environments to its military clients via DKP,” said Bracken. “The simplification of application deployments through DKP’s automation is a huge advantage for DevSecOps teams,” he added.
Besides deploying DKP for Platform One, GDIT made DKP the foundation of the Kubernetes solutions GDIT creates within its own Coral Software Factory, which Bracken leads.
Meeting Accelerating Modernization Demands
GDIT is currently creating DKP-based solutions to fulfill a new round of DoD contracts it has secured for container management solutions, and Bracken said he expects more deployments will be forthcoming as military modernization continues to accelerate.
“The DKP solutions that GDIT is providing to military customers are chiefly greenfield deployments to modernize legacy infrastructures,” said Bracken. “This includes providing shared-tenant environments and the digital engineering required to build specific agency applications on top of the Kubernetes foundation.”
Most of the solutions GDIT is providing are running either in the cloud or on premise, with deployment to edge locations also in the mix, said Bracken. Within these environments, ease of deployment, ease of management, observability, and multi-cloud, multi-cluster management are among the valued production-ready benefits DKP provides, he added.
U.S. military agencies are seeking “all the benefits around containerization,” Bracken explained, including development workflow for infrastructure, operational flexibility, and efficiency.
Driven by Customer Demand
The Kubernetes solutions GDIT is providing are driven by customer demand, said Bracken. “We are always on the lookout for what customers are using and wanting to use,” he said.
The Platform One program was a proving ground and a beacon for what military groups were looking to deploy, he explained. By keying off of that program, GDIT was able to create solutions that fulfilled needs that were current and that pointed towards the future.
By leveraging its digital engineering expertise, GDIT plans to create innovative solutions that it can provide on top of the DKP foundations it is providing to customers, said Bracken. Because most of the military environments are combinations of on-premise and cloud deployments, providing multi-cloud management solutions on DKP will be a major direction, he said.
“Doing multi-cluster management on your own is not easy,” Bracken explained, adding that there is an opportunity to provide full Kuberentes deployments at multiple security classification levels.
Providing secure supply-chain solutions is another big movement going forward, said Bracken. “The need to secure the supply chain is receiving heightened attention, and the high levels of security DKP provides will serve those strategic goals,” he explained.
Providing a big data platform based on Apache Kafka fast-data pipelines is another opportunity, said Bracken.
AI Apps on the Horizon
Although artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) solutions are still in the nascent stages within Kubernetes solutions GDIT is providing to the U.S. military, the DKP foundation will support AI applications and AIOps as AI use cases increase, said Bracken.
“The demand for Kubernetes is accelerating across all the verticals we support,” said Bracken. GDIT aims to give customers all the benefits of containerization, including development workflow for infrastructure and operational flexibility, he said.
The challenges customers face include migration issues and integration issues, said Bracken. The skills gap is another barrier for military agencies to overcome, for which D2iQ’s automation and training program provides an answer, he added.
Working with D2iQ support has been instrumental in making Kubernetes deployments a success, said Bracken. Asked to rate the performance of DKP and the level of support GDIT has received from D2iQ, Bracken said both have been “excellent.”
To learn how D2iQ can help you succeed in your modernization programs, speak with the experts at D2iQ.