Cloud infrastructure for the intelligence community

By:  Dr. Marty Trevino, Jr.

I’m the former Technical Director of Mission Analytics at the National Security Agency  so I know many of the challenges that intelligence community (IC) agencies face when trying to implement computing technologies.  Cloud technologies, like Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), offer flexible infrastructure that’s much easier and more cost effective to deploy than on-premises solutions.

I recently spoke to Scott Gaetjen, Chief Architect of Oracle National Security Group’s Cloud Program Management Office (PMO).  Scott wrote the book on database security (literally- Oracle Database 12c Security available on Amazon) and is one of the sharpest guys in the industry.

According to Scott, “OCI offers several different options to accommodate specific data needs.  If you need dedicated servers for large workloads, with 2X-5X better performance and pricing than the leading classified cloud vendor, bare metal compute is what you need.  If you need to rent time slices of computing power for "bursty" big workloads, Oracle Bare Metal HPC will work for you.  On the other hand, Oracle Bare Metal GPU is great for agency customers who need to process and analyze huge data sets with AI and ML algorithms.”

Scott told me, “Oracle Autonomous Database gives you a cloud database with machine learning to automate all of the performance tunings.  It’s hands-off.  You can put your applications on the platform, and the autonomous database does the work of the DBA.” In essence, this can mean less administrative and more mission time – a win for every technical director and IC leader.  Scott shared this Accenture report with me that documents the significant cost savings from the automated functionality of this cloud database.  Scott also told me “Oracle Exadata cloud service is by far the fastest way to run Oracle database workloads in the cloud.  In benchmark comparisons, we’re faster and cheaper than all of our competitors.”

Oracle supports open source

Scott and I also discussed Oracle’s involvement in the open-source community.  “Many customers think Oracle is proprietary, but it’s not.  We very much support open-source on our technology stack, such as Java, Kubernetes, Fn, and many others.”

Oracle is the first cloud vendor to implement off-box network virtualization, which takes the network and IO virtualization out of the software stack and puts it in the network.  According to Scott, “My customers can run bare metal hosts side-by-side, including VMs and Oracle Exadata Cloud Service, using the same APIs.  It gives customers a tremendous amount of control over security and performance.”

Security designed for classified workloads

OCI uses a multi-layered security strategy that’s specifically designed for the IC to meet the security, protection, and compliance requirements for classified workloads.  Oracle’s seven pillar approach to cloud security includes customer isolation, data encryption, security controls, visibility, secure hybrid cloud, high availability, and verifiably secure infrastructure. 

Interested in getting a first-hand look at OCI capabilities and how it can help your agency innovate? One of our dedicated IC sales engineers can conduct a cloud-assisted trial at your agency. 

About Dr. Marty Trevino, Jr.

Marty is a nationally known Data / Decision Scientist and thought leader with a focus on building advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Systems.  He has conceptualized, developed, and deployed multiple next-generation Visual Analytic systems in the U.S. Intelligence Community and the cybersecurity industry in Silicon Valley.  Dr. Trevino has also led global and diverse technical and research teams, as well as writing and speaking on a variety of topics ranging from Decision Science, Advanced Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence. Marty is the Chief Scientist for a Silicon Valley Cyber Security firm, the Senior Technical Advisor to Inter-American Defense Board (IADB), where he advises the leaders of 27 countries on Cyber Security and Visual Analytics.  He is a published author and visiting professor at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. and can be reached on LinkedIn.
Back to top of page