Most Canadians ask what the military needs next, and cloud computing may not be the first to come to mind.
But modernizing how Canadian security officials manage larger troves of data could be among the most important decisions in the coming years – and federal officials confirmed to Global News that the “initial” work is carried out.
“The military reflects the societies they lead and many types of development in how we fight future wars are things we see in society today, which is a huge amount of data management,” Richard said. Shimooka, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
“It takes huge amounts of information and organizing and storing it, and then actually applying it to perform operations.”
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Canada’s national security agencies and the military are at the forefront of the hordes of data that need to be continuously monitored, assessed and managed to support operations conducted to protect the country’s interests.
However, those reams of data are not just stored in filing cabinets or basements or bunkers. They sit in the “cloud”-the digital ether that most Canadians probably know as a safe haven for backing up old family photos or for syncing information between multiple devices.
As the amorphous nature of cyber warfare and cyber conflict has demonstrated in recent years, the ability to gather, interpret, share and act on digital information is already a critical part of how military and national agencies work. of security their jobs in the 21st century.
However, modernization is a slow march for Canadian security actors, including the Canadian Forces.
“Some of our systems and processes date back to the’ 50s. So. [there is] insane potential to upgrade that not even with modern skills, but to catch up with the 2010s, ”said Dave Perry, vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and an expert on Canadian defense policy.
“It was a huge success to start using [Microsoft] Office 365 in recent years. “
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U.S. military cloud contracts cost billions
Speculation about whether Canada could look towards a cloud computing contract came amid plans south of the border to award a multibillion-dollar contract later this year for the Department of Defense.
Last summer, the U.S. Defense Department announced plans to award a contract in April 2022 for what it calls Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability.
That initiative aims to bring multiple American IT providers into a contract to provide cloud computing services for the military, and it replaces a single vendor program planned under the former Trump administration known as JEDI – the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project.
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Last month, the Pentagon announced that the JWCC contract would not be awarded until December 2022.
Microsoft and Amazon are believed to be frontrunners for different parts of that deal, while Google, Oracle and IBM have also expressed interest.
Some of those companies are also now lobbying Canadian officials to get similar contracts in place here.
Which companies are lobbying Canadian officials?
Google, IBM, Oracle and Microsoft have not had any lobbying lists with national security officials in recent months, although all list cloud computing as among their broader interests in lobbying with officials in other departments including the Treasury Board Secretariat, Justice Canada, and Natural Resources.
Amazon Web Services has recently filed records revealing lobbying with national security agencies and officials, one of its listed interests is seeking contracts “with multiple government departments and institutions regarding solutions based on Amazon Cloud and related support services. “
The web giant also has job postings for its efforts to promote cloud computing in Canadian government departments, including an account manager. That role was mandated to “increase the use of Amazon Web Services by building strategic accounts within the Federal Government National Security sector of Canada.”
According to lobbyist submissions, Eric Gales, president of the Canada branch, met with Michael Power, chief of staff for Defense Minister Anita Anand, in Feb. 19, 2022, and a day before it met with Shared Services Canada’s acting assistant deputy minister, Scott Davis.
He also met with Sami Khoury, head of the Canadian Center for Cyber Security, in Nov. 17, 2021.
The Canadian Center for Cyber Security is part of the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s signals intelligence agency and the body tasked with protecting the IT networks of the Government of Canada.
A spokesperson for the CSE confirmed that early work on the matter is underway,
“The emerging information technology (IT) world is moving to cloud-based services. We know that our closest allies have, or are gaining, classified cloud capabilities, and we continue to talk to them about security requirements to maintain interoperability, ”said Evan Koronewski.
“The security and intelligence community of the Government of Canada is engaged in preliminary research, exploring the requirements for classified cloud services.”
He added that officials are exploring “security requirements” with the Treasury Board Secretariat, Shared Services Canada, and the Department of National Defense.
A spokesman for the latter also confirmed that the military is working on integrating more capabilities into the cloud, though not yet for classified material.
“We recognize that cloud computing offers major benefits in terms of IT efficiency,” said Dan Le Bouthillier.
“DND/CAF is leveraging its cloud capacity and adopting a Multi-cloud Strategy with multiple vendors, such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Google.”
He added that the goal is to “get the right balance between agility and security.”
The website for Shared Services Canada, which administers IT services for government departments, states that there are framework agreements for cloud computing set out in eight providers: Google Cloud, ServiceNow, IBM Cloud, Oracle, ThinkOn , Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.
Those will allow departments to contract with cloud services as they need through those providers.
The U.S. military’s cloud computing contract is worth US $ 9 billion, or $ 11.2 billion.
It is unclear how much a similar solution could cost for national security agencies here.
Both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Defense Minister Anita Anand have suggested in recent weeks that the government weighs an increase in defense spending, bringing it closer to NATO’s target, which aims to see all members of the military alliance spend at least two percent. of GDP in defense.
Canada’s current defense spending is at 1.39 percent of GDP.
To reach the two percent target would require approximately $ 16 billion.
That’s higher than the increases currently expected under the government’s 2017 plan to boost defense spending, which will see it rise to $ 32.7 billion in 2026/27 from $ 18.9 billion in 2016/17.
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