EXPERTEDITION

Closing the Gap
Between Mission
and Data

Insights on Data from:• General Services
Administration• NASA• Air Force• Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission

B R O U G HT TO YO U BY:TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Data-in-motion optimizes
management of GSA’s
vehicle fleet…2

Setting
Data in Motion
for Government
Missions
Data in motion allows an agency to connect
its systems and applications to supply ready accessin real time to the data it needs to make better
decisions and improve efficiencies.

confluent.io

Air Mobility Commandlearns to provide support‘at the speed of data’…4NASA adopting ApacheKafka to enable real-timedata from Mars…6
FERC stands up clouddata science, analytics
platform to enable
collaboration…8
Agencies moving to adata-in-motion paradigm
creates a ‘central
nervous system’ for their
missions…10

Over the last 15 years, agencies have come to realize
the value data can bring to the mission areas. But it’s
only been in the last few years that they’ve started
to make the connection between information anddecision-makers.
The Foundations of Evidence Based Policymaking Act
of 2018 pushed agencies to create the infrastructure, particularly by naminga chief data officer.
Now, the CDOs are leading efforts to construct data super highways that gofrom sensor to decision maker.
Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, deputy commander of the Air Mobility Command,
said the K-46 taker will use the Advanced Battle Management System(ABMS) to become flying “hotspots” so pilots can offload new data to F-22
and F-35 fighters at the same time they’re receiving fuel.
Other agencies like NASA, the General Services Administration and theFederal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) are attracted to similarpotential benefits of creating platforms to drive data to edge and back to thedecision makers.
FERC CDO Kirsten Dalboe said her office is building a cloud data science andanalytics platform, and taking steps to modernize its data footprint.
GSA has been able to get its data not only on the same page but a lot more
quickly, accessing data while it’s still flowing through the system, rather than
waiting to send individual queries to separate databases.
Will LaForest, public sector chief technology officer at Confluent, said
these and other agencies are starting to think about how to create a centralconnective tissue that conducts their data across their organizations, and to
begin handling their data-in-motion as it is created and flows to those whoneed it.
This e-book highlights some examples of how agencies are benefitting fromthat concept of data-in-motion to improve mission outcomes.
Jason Miller
Executive Editor
Federal News Network

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Data-in-motion optimizes
management of GSA’s vehicle fleet
BY KEVIN MCCANEY

The General Services Administration is reaping
the benefits of data-in-motion in managing the
expansive fleet of vehicles the agency either
owns or leases, using the vast volumes ofdata it gathers to improve the efficiency of the
fleet.
GSA’s fleet is among the largest in the world,
supporting more than 210,000 vehicles (more thanFedEx has) for both civilian and military customers
in domestic and overseas locations. Managing thosevehicles efficiently involves a lot of data from multiple
sources that needs to be collected, sorted, analyzed
and put to use.
The data can, for instance, help GSA Fleet
Management lower expenses through better
management of contracts and identify opportunities
for sharing vehicles among groups rather than overallocating cars that may spend most of their time
sitting unused. And it helps agencies meet reporting

requirements under the web-based Federal
Automotive Statistical Tool (FAST) and GSA’s
Asset Level Data (ALD) systems for reportingto FAST.
The key to making this work is data-in-motion,
which allows the processing and use of data as it’s
being created or when it’s in transit, in order to better
manage vehicle use, in line with the Federal Data
Strategy and Executive Order 13834 on efficient federal
operations.
“While the data needs are diverse across theorganization and federal government, Fleet requires
reliable and robust data systems and tools tomanage vehicles across their entire lifecycle,” a GSA
spokesperson said.
That data includes information from a range ofsources, as well as from locations around the world,
including original equipment manufacturers, Fleet’s
payment card provider and GSA’s telematics program.

“While the data needs are diverse acrossthe organization and federal government,
Fleet requires reliable and robust datasystems and tools to manage vehicles acrosstheir entire lifecycle.”— GSA spokesperson

Data in motion allows an agency
to connect its systems andapplications to supply ready accessin real time to the data its needs tomake better decisions and improve
efficiencies. In this case, it has
resulted in the GSA getting better
mileage out of its FedFMS.

Getting data in gear

The traditional approach to data collection is to dump
it into a storage system that might be siloed fromother systems and then send queries to that datawhen necessary. It wasn’t a particularly fast system
for making use of data and had a few other limitations,such as having to clean up the data to accommodate
complex business rules, according to GSA. It also
had difficulty interoperating with other GSA systems,
such as the fleet drive-thru safety program for leased
vehicles. The different data sources and requirements
could result in confusion and errors when reportingfrom the two systems was combined.
With a data-in-motion platform from Confluent, which
provides data-in-motion services to a variety of federal
agencies, GSA has been able to get its data not only
on the same page but a lot more quickly, accessing
data while it’s still flowing through the system, rather
than waiting to send individual queries to separate
databases. Confluent is a data-in-motion platform
with Apache Kafka at its core built for event stream
processing. It’s designed to collect and process
events as they happen, allowing customers to make
immediate use of the information.

The agency is better able to track compliance withfederal regulations, replace vehicles according toschedules that maximize value to the taxpayer, perform
electronic recall management and analyze data todecrease maintenance and repair costs while reducing
vehicle down time, the spokesperson said.
The agency has created the Federal Fleet Inventory
Tool, which pulls data from FAST and provides robust
data visualization into the inventory and operating
costs of federal vehicles. Fleet managers and users
can access the data in an effort to make better
management decisions.
GSA Fleet also incorporates telematics, which collects
and analyzes data such as maintenance, driver
behavior, reporting, and fuel use and idling, with an eye
toward lowering costs. The agency said telematics
has helped it reduce risky driving behaviors, finds
opportunities for car-sharing, saves time conducting
market research and avoids unnecessary contracting
expenses. It’s also helped it meet ALD and FAST
reporting requirements.
By increasing the speed and accessibility of data-inmotion, agencies like GSA and those working with
the Federal Fleet Management System (FedFMS) can
respond more quickly to the available information andmake better, faster decisions.
“We provide customer agencies with the data theyrequire to effectively and efficiently manage theirfleets,” the agency spokesperson said.
Data-in-motion allows an agency to connect its
systems and applications to supply ready access inreal time to the data its needs to make better decisions
and improve efficiencies. In this case, it has resulted in
the GSA getting better mileage out of its FedFMS.

“These interfaces enable GSA to provide safeand reliable vehicles to our customers,” the GSA
spokesperson said.

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Air Mobility Command learns toprovide support ‘at the speed of data’
BY DAVID THORNTONThe Air Force recently announced that
it will modify its KC-46 aerial refuelingtankers to host its Advanced Battle
Management System (ABMS) to
become flying “hotspots” that canoffload new data to F-22 and F-35 fightersat the same time they’re receiving fuel.
Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, deputy commander ofthe Air Mobility Command, said pilots during
the recent exercise Mobility Guardian called theincreased situational awareness from ABMS
“game changing.”
ABMS is the Air Force’s main contribution to DoD’s
Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2)
vision of interconnected military systems.
“We did learn for one, what it takes to field theright equipment to be part of that architecture,so that it’s useful,” Robinson said during a
recent Defense News webcast. “We also hadcommentary from some of the receiver aircraft,
A-10s in this case, and having the tanker on
Link 16 was ‘game changing’ from the receiver
perspective, because today, a lot of thatsituational awareness with mobility aircraft
is gleaned through what we call voice wrap
or voice reports. So it’s human beingsin the command and control nodes, andaircrew amongst aircrew relaying, via pushto talk radio, the situation. And then you
have to write it down on a piece of paper or achart, that you have to build a visual depiction ofa situational awareness they’re dealing with so welearned that that’s actually value added, it actually
reduces the workload for all involved.”
He said it also gives mission commanders on the
ground a near-real time situational awareness ofwhat’s going on around them. And that situationalawareness extends out as far as a feed can bebroadcast. Even warfighters who can’t maintaindirect connectivity to the command and control
node still get enough information to make better
decisions to keep the mission on track.

Robinson said placing the ABMS system on
the KC-46 tankers is a marriage of functionality
and convenience. The tanker’s presence inoperations like this is required, he said, to allow
those fighters to reach their mission. So it’sconveniently already on site during themission. But it also has the perfect“That tanker can also, because of its size, carrysize, weight and power to carry thewhat we’re talking about: Edge computing.
hardware required to link the ABMS
So it has enough processing power on board,system to its space-based components
if it gets disconnected, the processing power
while providing an alternate path toconnectivity.
onboard can store that data.”“When you’re in a position like
we are where we support 10 othercombatant commands and theircomponents, we have to have arobust and persistent understandingof what’s most important to whom,
when and why, and how that links
back to the overall strategy orcampaign, if you will.”— Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, deputy
commander, Air Mobility Command“That tanker can also, because of its size, carrywhat we’re talking about: Edge computing. So it
has enough processing power on board, if it gets
disconnected, the processing power onboard canstore that data,” Robinson said. “So as a fighter
pulls up for receiving fuel from the tanker for its
mission, it can pass information that it has, if thelink is broken, to the tanker that can then store itor transmit it through the capabilities that it hason ABS construct. As well as anything received tothe tanker, in between refuelings, it can also pass
information back to the fighters as well, that they
can take onboard and with their systems figureout the most optimal way to prosecute their
mission.”He said ideally, he wants every one of Air Mobility
Command’s aircraft equipped to handle thissystem. Due to fiscal realities, that probably isn’t
possible, but Robinson said he intends to buy
as many as he can. His target for installing thisequipment is the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022.

Air Mobility Command has been angling tobecome the earliest adopters of this systemsince late last year.
“Air Mobility Command … is one of most forwardleaning commands we have in JADC2 thinking,and they are ready to go put [ABMS capabilities]
on mobility platforms so they can act as data
relays,” Will Roper, the then-Air Force acquisition
chief said in November. “We’ve got tankers that
top you up with gas, the vision of topping you
up with data makes a lot of sense: You’re going
to be there anyway to get fuel. And then thattanker standing off also can act as a battlefield
relay and a network node. So they’ve got the rightthinking.”
Robinson said this is a natural extension of the
supportive mission of Air Mobility Command.
“When you’re in a position like we are where we
support 10 other combatant commands andtheir components, we have to have a robust
and persistent understanding of what’s mostimportant to whom, when and why, and how thatlinks back to the overall strategy or campaign, if
you will,” he said. “And that’s what we do pretty
well, right now, but we’re going to have to getbetter at it. We’re going to have to be able to dothat at the speed of data. Because right now, we
don’t necessarily do that. We use data, but not ina near real time fashion.”
The KC-46 project is known as “Capability
Release 1,” and the initial work is part of $170
million the Air Force has allocated for ABMS thisyear.

— Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, deputy commander, Air
Mobility Command
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NASA adopting Apache Kafka toenable real-time data from MarsBY KEVIN MCCANEY

Federal government agencies are seeing
an increased need to make quick useof real-time data, in areas ranging fromhealthcare and processing benefits
requests to managing fleets of vehicles
and supporting military missions. For
NASA, real-time data also extends into thefar frontiers via its Deep Space Network (DSN). It’s
another example of how agencies are using ApacheKafka to set their data in motion.
The DSN is rooted in NASA’s array of three massive
radio antennas spotted equidistantly around theglobe. One of these antennas is located in Gladstone,
California. The other two are located in Madrid, Spain
and Canberra, Australia. But its reach extends far into
space in support of the space agency’s interplanetary
missions (as well as a few missions in orbit around
Earth). Operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

6(JPL) in Pasadena, California, DSN
collects the feeds from missions suchas the ones working on the exploration of
Mars.
Although some commands and data can betransmitted directly between Earth and NASA’s
rovers, the mass of information being generated firstneeds to go through the Mars Relay Network. That
network is comprised of a constellation of orbiters
collecting scientific data from the Perseverance
rover, which touched down in February, as well as the
Curiosity, which has been exploring the red planetsince 2012, and the InSight lander, which has been
operating there since 2018.

“We’re going to be getting higher
data rates from spacecraft, more
information into the network,
more information that needs to bemonitored, and we’re going to needa way to deal with this information,and parcel it and make sense of itvery quickly.”— Rishi Verma, data architect, NASA-JPL
For most of the agency’s space exploration history,
NASA’s workflows from space were slow, evenaccounting for the transmission times required acrosstens of millions of miles. The building and launchingprocess for satellites and probes happens over a long
lifecycle, so missions often went into space with sometechnology that was already out of date. The DSN has
always been reliable, but it couldn’t accommodate themassive growth of data or the real-time use of it.
That’s changing now because of JPL’s use of ApacheKafka, which enables the sharing and use of data as it’screated.

As NASA’s space mission continues to expand, theamount of data it collects grows exponentially.
“We’re going to be getting higher data rates fromspacecraft, more information into the network, more
information that needs to be monitored, and we’regoing to need a way to deal with this information,and parcel it and make sense of it very quickly,” Rishi
Verma, a NASA-JPL data architect, said at a recent
Kafka Summit in San Francisco.
In addition to notable missions such as the explorationof Mars, the moon and the outer solar system, NASAis also collecting information from a growing numberof other, smaller efforts, including CubeSats. JPL has
been aiming to put all that data into a single picture.

That network is comprised of aconstellation of orbiters collecting
scientific data from the Perseverance
rover, which touched down in
February, as well as the Curiosity,
which has been exploring the redplanet since 2012, and the InSight
lander, which has been operating
there since 2018.

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FERC stands up cloud data
science, analytics platform toenable collaboration
BY JORY HECKMAN

Chief data officers are a relatively recent
addition at most agencies, but they all facean enormous task – taking inventory of all of
their agency’s data and figuring out how to get
the most use out of it.
Large agencies have a harder time moving ahead onthat inventory, but smaller agencies like the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission are getting started
by focusing on building out the data community, andmaking sure it has data stewards up maintain data
quality.
That groundwork, however, is allowing the agency
to stand up a modernized data infrastructure. FERCCDO Kirsten Dalboe said an interview that her office isbuilding a cloud data science and analytics platform,
and taking steps to modernize its data footprint.
“We want to make sure that we’re offering capabilities
across that full data value chain where we have storage
tools, we have modeling tools, we have analytics tools,
we have collaboration tools, or we’re building out thatwhole roadmap of capabilities into our cloud based
analytics platform,” Dalboe said.

In order to modernize the data footprint andget that data platform running, FERC has
spent the past two years on building out theteam of officials focused on maintaining data
quality.
“Our big focus really has been on building our data
governance community. I often talk about building themuscle memory of data governance because thoseconversations are often new to people. The first yearof our data governance body was just building thecommunity. Figuring out what we needed to talk about,
how we needed to talk about it,” Dalboe said. “Some ofthat included the foundational things that needed tooccur before we can really start doing the inventory.
While none of those things actually had us building[the] inventory, they were incredibly important, because
without those conversations starting early on, we would
have come out with an inventory that was potentially
not very meaningful.”
To facilitate FERC’s ongoing data inventory work, Dalboe
said she works closely with agency chief information
officer Mittal Desai, who also sits on the agency’s data
governance council.

“We do have to rely on each other. Unless a CDO islargely more in kind of the policy and compliance space,
you’re going to have to have a very strong partnershipwith the CIO … because at the end of the day, data does
live in and sit on technology, so making sure there’s thatthat’s being managed in a way that facilitates the data
strategy is important, she said.
Beyond building out a data community at FERC, Dalboe
said the agency’s new data platform will give rise to
greater sharing and collaboration among employees.

products through the analytics platform, and easily
share that with their peers,” Dalboe said. “Pre-modern
data platform, people were building off of static data
sets on their desktops or their laptops … so if theperson they wanted to share their data product withdidn’t have the same tools on their desktop, then they’d
be kind of dead in the water in the ability to share. So
some of the first steps in having that modern data
platform are we want to make sure that we’re bringing
our people, our data and our capabilities as close
together as possible.”“The first step is making sure we have a strong kindof enterprise data thinking strategy into our analytics
environment, so that we have that live access of data
available. This also improves our sharing ability, interms of analytics being able to build out their data

“The first step is making sure we have a strong
kind of enterprise data thinking strategy into ouranalytics environment, so that we have that live
access of data available. This also improves oursharing ability, in terms of analytics being able tobuild out their data products through the analytics
platform, and easily share that with their peers.”— Kirsten Dalboe, chief data officer, Federal Energy
Regulatory

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Agencies moving to a data-in-motion
paradigm creates a ‘central nervous
system’ for their missionsof these small events, things that are changing
constantly throughout the day. So data-in-motion
is about handling it as it happens, rather than justsending it to a database, and then after the fact,
asking questions.”
It’s a matter of how data gets from one place toanother within, and even between, organizations.

THIS CONTENT HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY CONFLUENT

Rather than storing it in one place and then having

Will LaForest,
public sector chief
technology officer,
Confluent“The idea is that one taps into somesource of data and as changes occur, they
are published as a sequence of events,
and then any number of downstream
consumers can receive it anywhere they
happen to be. And this is really key, you
are decoupling the producers of the datafrom the consumers. It’s what makes it
operationally scale.”

The federal government

anywhere. More importantly, data at rest in ato go and find it to make use of it, Confluent creates

is coming around to thedatastore isn’t useful when it isn’t being queried,a kind of central nervous system to automaticallyimportance of data, and is

and isn’t driving decision making. Instead, DoD and

conduct data to where it’s needed. After all, if you

in the process of making aother federal agencies need to start thinking about

touch a hot stove, the pain data isn’t stored insignificant amount of policy

creating a central connective tissue that conducts

your hand until your brain goes looking for it to“The idea is that one taps into some source ofaround how to fully leverage

their data across their organizations, and begin

use it. That information is conducted to the brain

data and as changes occur, they are published asit. Not least among thishandling their data-in-motion as it is created andautomatically in order to drive action – namely,a sequence of events, and then any number of

new policy is the Defense

flows to those who need it.

moving your hand. In this instance, why should

downstream consumers can receive it anywhere

artificial intelligences, to name just one use case,they happen to be. And this is really key, you arefunction any differently from organic ones?

decoupling the producers of the data from the

Department’s five new “data— Will LaForest, public sector chief
technology officer, Confluent

decrees,” set out in a memo

“Data-in-motion is really about inverting thatsigned by Deputy Defense

dynamic: rather than storing the data away in

Secretary Kathleen Hicks inthese silos where it’s static and asking retroactive

Another use case where data needs to be handled

LaForest said. “That connective tissue of decoupling

May. The memo, among other things, creates a data

questions, what you want to do is publish thein motion in order to trigger actions as quickly

all the different actors within an organization, so

council for all DoD components to coordinate theirdata as a stream and constantly deliver it to theas possible is edge computing. Many federal

they can all produce and consume independently is

activities, and to increase data sharing among thequestions, or analysis,” said Will LaForest, publicagencies, especially ones with highly distributed

the only way to make it really scalable across a large

components.

sector chief technology officer at Confluent.

missions that don’t always have reliable or constantorganization when you are sharing data.”“Suppose I care about supply chain optimization,connectivity, simply can’t wait on data collected inHicks wrote that the changes are “critical toand I’m in the military. I want to constantly

the field to travel back to a centralized storage andAnother relevant use case is cybersecurity.

improving performance and creating decision

optimize whenever inventory arrives or leaves,compute, be processed, and then have the results

President Joe Biden’s recent executive orderadvantage at all echelons from the battlespacewhen forces deploy, when production capability

transferred back out to them. For warfighters on theencouraged agencies to adopt a zero trust approachto the board room, ensuring U.S. competitivechanges, updates are made to equipment

battlefield, or Customs and Border Protection agentsto cyber. But LaForest said the problem there isadvantage. To accelerate the department’s efforts,

capabilities, and hundreds of other events. All

screening vehicles at a port of entry, the opportunity

again the scale; a key component of zero trust is theleaders must ensure all DoD data is visible,

missions are really made up of thousands, millions

to use that data is already passed by the time it’smonitoring and threat detection in observability

accessible, understandable, linked, trustworthy,

or even billions, when you are leveraging sensors,

processed. And that’s if they have connectivity.

data, but there are massive amounts being produced,

Handling the data-in-motion can deliver results andand agencies have to figure out what to use andtrigger actions at the speed of conflict.

which tools to send it to. That’s where Confluent

interoperable, and secure.”
There is an acute need to avoid
the same mistakes of past data
modernizations efforts. Attempting
to create yet another centralized
data lake with all an agency’s data
would just be more of the same andadding to data sprawl as existing
databases aren’t likely to be going

10“Data-in-motion is really about inverting thatdynamic: rather than storing the data away inthese silos where it’s static and asking retroactive
questions, what you want to do is publish thedata as a stream and constantly deliver it to thequestions, or analysis.”consumers. It’s what makes it operationally scale,”comes in.
And that’s where the central nervous system comes
into play. It determines what data is anomalous,“Doing the same thing we’ve always done and justuseful and relevant in the moment, conducts thatcalling it something different is not a solution,”

data from the sensors to the edge compute for rapid

LaForest said. “Making another data lake doesn’t

analysis and action, and sends the rest back toconstitute a data strategy. That’s one technique. But

central compute to be stored and analyzed later.

really, you need more than that.”— Will LaForest, public sector chief technology
officer, Confluent
INSIGHT BY CONFLUENTINSIGHT BY CONFLUENT

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the Gap
EXPERT Closing
Between Mission

EDITION and DataB R O U G HT TO YO U BY: