NATO, IBM Explore Private Cloud for Command & Control 
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is working with IBM on a private cloud project that will help meet 21st-century requirements for command and control, surveillance and just keeping the 28-member military alliance on the same page. The project starts early in the New Year and follows President Obama’s ‘Cloud First” government IT mandate.
NATO will start implementing the cloud infrastructure early this year, with the goal of making recommendations to NATO’s acquisition officials by the summer.
The project specifies the development and launch of a private cloud at headquarters of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation in Norfolk, Va.
The on-premises cloud will be used to test and develop network solutions for command, control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance projects, NATO and IBM officials confirmed.
NATO’s cloud project will also focus on application, database and IT infrastructure interoperability in hopes, of more quickly collecting and analyzing data, including such as military intelligence, across NATO’s 28 member nations.
Specifically, NATO will use components of IBM CloudBurst software, including Service Delivery Manager, which run on IBM’s blade servers, according to an IBM official. Under the deal, NATO and IBM will explore how cloud can improve efficiency and lower costs for consolidating and integrating C2 (command and control) technologies and programs. The system will also support NATO’s commanders to pull together and asses data from radar systems, cameras and infrared images.
News of the NATO deal with IBM comes as the clock is ticking on President Obama’s “cloud-first” policy for government IT procurement. This mandate requires government agencies over the next 18 months, to migrate at least three (3) applications and/or IT capacity projects to the cloud.
Officials did not disclose how much the implementation will cost.
