The coming year will be one of great consequence for the U.S. Army and its goal of streamlining and insulating its sensitive networks, according to service leaders. The Army describes 2024 as the time when its unified network and related operations, known as UNO, coalesce. The seamless combination promises global connectivity and fewer isolated pathways to monitor, ultimately promoting cybersecurity. Mark Kitz, the leader of the Army’s Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, told C4ISRNET in an interview that UNO is the Army’s way of seeing the network.
The Army’s Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, spearheads UNO maturation. Identity and access management is a huge emphasis, and the office published a request for information for UNO. Responses to the RFI are due in December and could lead to multiple deals.
The UNO pursuit is critical to realizing multidomain operations, the Army’s ability to fight and win in any environment with the aid of allies. UNO employs a common suite of software and zero-trust principals and is a game-changer in terms of converging all the federated, separate networks the Army has had and bringing them into a centrally delivered service provider.
The Army’s zero-trust office and the service’s Network Cross-Functional Team, among others, are contributing to UNO’s realization, according to the force. The Defense Department is expected to institute basic levels of zero trust across the organization by 2027.
