Intelligence system moving to the cloud.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin
• Position: Global Defense

* As more engineers transfer defense networks to cloud computing, developers of a decades-old intelligence system are embracing the move.

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The joint deployable intelligence support system, which was created in 1992, connects deployed troops with the military's top-secret network known as the joint worldwide intelligence communications system, or JWICS, said Navy Cmdr. Brian Hoffer, program manager for JDISS.

"It arose after the Gulf War as a need to get intelligence into the hands of the warfighter," he said. "Complementary to that network was the need to get a one-size-fits-all intelligence workstation to hang on the edge of the network."

At the time, JDISS was a physical box or workstation where service members could create intelligence documents and send information from system to system, he said. Now, JDISS--which includes a number of applications--has gone from hardware to software.

Webster Essex, technical director for JDISS, said: "Our customers are relying on us more so today as not necessarily the physical box, but to provide a certified software that they can include on their" systems.

JDISS currently has about 600 different...