The Pentagon’s current Authority to Operate (ATO) process poses a significant risk to the innovations our military needs.
Among the three letter alphabet soup acronyms of the Federal government there’s one which stands out almost exclusively as perpetually problematic for all involved: the Pentagon’s Authority to Operate (ATO) process. The accrediting system for defense software looks more like a bureaucratic barrier to entry than a software review.
The widely shared concern within the Department of Defense and among defense industry experts is that the ATO accrediting system for defense software is slow, costly, and extraordinarily difficult to navigate – even within an industry mired in bureaucracy. “The ATO process, frankly, has been cumbersome,” acknowledged Pentagon Chief Information Officer John Sherman.
While far from the forefront of national media, ATO inefficiencies are at the heart of some of the most pressing issues for the country. The risk of continued latencies, bottlenecks, and stagnation in our software deployment leaves every citizen dangerously vulnerable to the pacing threat of the Chinese and Russians – and creates a dependency on a few software leviathans to the detriment of the most innovative startups.
The problem has become clear for stakeholders: the process is too slow, too costly and anti-competitive. At its current state, startups with innovative new ideas and solutions that want to take their software to market and advance our national security objectives face a nearly two-year accreditation process at the cost sometimes exceeding $1 million. Simple fixes are available. For example, allowing reciprocity, enabling federal entities to reuse another internal or external organization’s assessments and share information, would be a step forward in reducing time and costs.
The system leaves behind innovators and problem solvers who could greatly support our national security efforts with new technology and software. Failing to address the underlying bottleneck issues with the ATO process risks stalling, and even deterring, the implementation of new software systems which could make all the difference to our warfighters. But not addressing the core challenges of the ATO process risks creating a dependency on just one or two companies for the deployment of software in a similar way that our military currently depends on primes for our hardware weapons systems. “Smaller, more agile companies with cutting-edge software solutions may be deterred from working with the DoD altogether due to the time and resource demands of the ATO process,” explained Dr. Daniel Patt of the Hudson Institute.
Fortunately, this bureaucratic problem can be resolved through pragmatism. Both the private and public sectors recognize the issues surrounding the ATO process and advanced practical solutions. For instance, the House Armed Services’ Subcommittee on Cyber Innovative Technologies and Information Systems (CITI) is proposing ATO changes be included in National Defense Authorization Act, legislation that Congress passes each year to authorize defense spending.
For its part, the private sector has been at work. The issue has become so prevalent that there are those who have built viable systems to stress test software programs and refine their code to accelerate the ATO process. “Better infrastructure to test and experiment with new software is definitely making a difference,” the Head of AI and analytics for Booz Allen, Steve Escaravage, told the press earlier this year. “Software factories” as they’re being referred to, such as the Gamewarden platform help software companies test their code and navigate the ATO process and reach the marketplace.
Whether solutions come from within the DOD, or derive from the private, the issues facing our software development need real world solutions at the speed of the 21st century. The opportunity cost of ignoring this problem comes at a high premium, losing our competitive advantage in the technology space, falling behind our adversaries and becoming dependent on few individuals. That is too high a price for our military and our nation to pay.
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