Jennifer Swanson, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for data, engineering and software, said the U.S. Army is halfway through completing the implementation plan for a unified data reference architecture, also known as UDRA, and expects to conclude all work by March, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.
UDRA is an effort that seeks to enable the military branch to develop a data mesh across all of its programs.
“That [implementation plan] does a few things for us. Number one, it helps us to make sure that the UDRA as it stands today is what we want it to be,” Swanson said at an event on Thursday.
“Number two, it allows us to begin doing some [program of record] integration. So we want to get after being able to determine, with our current programs of record, which ones we can maybe start migrating. Maybe not to all of this, maybe we’re not going to comply with every single thing in today’s programs of record immediately. But I think we can start taking credit for some of these things this year, and the UDRA is going to help us to get after that,” she added.
The service has also launched an innovation exchange lab in partnership with Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, or DEVCOM, to assess industry capabilities.
The lab is a cloud-based offering that allows industry partners to bring platforms for UDRA and assess their compliance and will be available to all vendors once it reaches full deployment in February.
“We want to make sure before we open it up to everybody, that we have our processes straight, and that it’s going to be efficient and effective,” Swanson said. “When we do that full launch, that’s something that will be available to industry to be able to bring in your solutions and determine, ‘Are you compliant?’ Obviously, it’s a business decision, but do you want and or need to make tweaks to your solutions to be more compliant with the UDRA?”