Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) milCloud® 2.0 – in combination with Oracle’s Exadata Database Machine platform – is paving quicker and easier pathways to advanced data analytics capabilities such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies, subject matter experts from both companies said during a July 22 webinar, “milCloud 2.0: Leveraging the Latest Tech for the Mission,” hosted by MeriTalk and GDIT.
“When we talk with customers, they ask about analytics services and what they need to buy,” said Jeffrey Phelan, Cloud Services Portfolio Lead, milCloud® 2.0, GDIT. “With the Oracle platform, we say you don’t have to go out and buy anything new, you don’t have to buy a new tool,” Phelan said. “Instead of driving around the car in first gear, you can get it out on the road and drive it in fifth gear” and maximize mission partners’ milCloud® 2.0 investments, he added.
milCloud® 2.0 connects cloud service offerings to Defense Department (DoD) networks, and provides DISA mission partners with the latest cloud technology at competitive prices and the highest levels of security and performance.
Lauren Farese, Senior Director at Oracle Public Sector, explained the Exadata platform’s capabilities to scale analytics requirements, handle increased data loads, and support next-generation DevOps.
With machine learning options for Oracle enterprise licenses, “you can now run advanced AI and machine learning algorithms right out of the box,” she said. “It’s easy to roll out, and it’s all in the database,” she said, adding that many operations are low-code. “You’ll be surprised at how simple and streamlined your analytical capabilities will be.”
“When we talk to customers at the DoD, we are trying to educate them that if you are running on Oracle already, we can move you over to milCloud® 2.0,” Phelan said. Cost and business risk calculations can feature prominently in that decision, he explained.
“We see a lot of projects that get stuck in the business case stage” because of cost and complexity concerns, he said. “Your finance people will be happy you are not spending a million dollars” to take advantage of the Oracle platform capabilities in concert with milCloud® 2.0, Phelan said, adding, “It’s a much lower-risk proposition.”
Darren Pulsipher, Chief Enterprise Solution Architect at Intel, explained during the webinar that Oracle’s Exadata platform is built on some of Intel’s newest technology enabling it “to have really large databases in memory, which is hugely important” to running larger-scale analytics-driven projects.” With up to six terabytes of data in memory, milCloud® 2.0 users “can run larger data sets, do their training there, and then push models back out to the edge whenever you need them,” he said.
Want to learn more? Listen to the full webinar on-demand now.