Army previews data strategy

The Army plans to release a new data strategy this summer.

Army CIO Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford called the data strategy, expected in the next 60 days, "one of our top IT-related reform efforts" when speaking to reporters following a keynote address at TechNet Cyber in Baltimore on May 15.

Crawford called the data problem "bigger than cloud."

"It's more, as I think deeply, two ridge lines over about where we need to be, we probably should be thinking more of an open-data environment than we are just a data strategy and just how we're going to protect the data," he said during his presentation. "An open-data initiative is what our moonshot against the data problem should be."

Crawford wouldn't get more specific than "within the next 60 days" for producing the data strategy when talking with reporters following the event. But he said to expect five things: transparency, usability, interoperability, security and, most importantly, accountability for tech developers.

"Our data's got to be visible, it's got to be usable, it's got to be interoperable, it's got to be secure. So you have to have a plan that enforces accountability for those who are out developing capability right now," he said after the event.

"This is going to be one of the foundational documents for the Army given the exponential growth of data, but it's got to go beyond a strategy," he said. "Implementation and then resourcing that implementation is going to be our focus."