Air Force wants data platform on classified network this summer

The Air Force's Chief Data Office is moving full force in trying to stand up its data platform on the classified network by the end of the summer.

Sherri Hanson, director of operations for the Air Force's Chief Data Office, said during a May 23 AFCEA DC event that while the office "still in the process of building that foundation," the Air Force plans to expand its data platform to the classified Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET).

The Chief Data Office was founded in the summer of 2017 but received its official mission directive in March. The Open Government Data Act, signed into law in January as part of a larger legislative package, mandates that government and federal agencies have a data office.

"We're still in the process of building that foundation," Hanson said. She added that the office's biggest challenges were access, having analytic tools in a common environment and incredible data volume.

"In order to begin to address some of those challenges we're putting together an Air Force Data Platform," she said. That platform is "all about being able to determine what our readiness is."

"What is our mission capable rate for all of our different aircraft? How do we determine the readiness of our workforce, our airmen?" she said.

Once in place, Hanson said, the platform will be especially helpful for cybersecurity. "We're not going to have a simple repository for data, we just need to know where it is so that we can do that [data extraction] process, bring it in and do the analytics" without having to store it in its own repository.