DOD ABIS cloud migration enables faster biometric analysis worldwide
The Department of Defense Automated Biometric Identification System (DOD ABIS) can process 45,000 biometric submissions per day from warfighters and agencies worldwide. And during major operations, its surge capacity can handle a staggering 100,000 submissions in a single day.
But this wasn't always the case.
To get there, the authoritative biometric repository that warfighters and other intelligence stakeholders use in collaboration to identify persons of interest globally had to evolve to meet growing user demand while aligning with the DOD Cloud Strategy’s directive of enabling a technological advantage on the modern battlefield.
“When we encounter a potential adversary in some far-away place, it’s important that warfighters and other agencies understand whether that person has a prior history of threat activities,” explains JB Burton, a retired Army brigadier general supporting Leidos force protection growth. “Are they on a watch list? Have we ever encountered them before? Providing timely, accurate and complete responses to DOD ABIS end users facilitates faster decision making at the forward edge.”
Now, DOD ABIS lets warfighters and intelligence teams process such information 10-15% faster and for more people than ever before. The new digitally modernized capacity is thanks to a recently completed migration of all test and production environments to a highly secure Impact Level 5 AWS cloud architecture, led by prime contractor Leidos.
Meeting complex mission requirements
DOD ABIS enables warfighters and other agencies to accurately identify, target, deny access and detain known or suspected adversaries they encounter on battlefields, near borders or on military bases worldwide. The system processes multiple biometric modalities, including fingerprints, palm prints, latent prints, iris scans, facial recognition and, most recently, voice recognition.
With a repository of over 30 million biometric records accessible by users across the DOD, other federal agencies and international partners, the system needed to transition from on-premise servers to a more flexible cloud infrastructure. The cloud migration would not only improve security, in alignment with the DOD’s move to a Zero Trust Architecture, but would also improve processing speed and enable seamless scalability to handle surges in submissions.
At the same time, the system needed to maintain its ability to interoperate and share data with other critical systems, including the FBI’s Next Generation Identification system and the Department of Homeland Security’s identification systems. DOD ABIS also manages crucial watch lists, updating them with information from external agencies and distributing them to a multitude of field device types to ensure that forces can quickly identify persons of interest wherever they encounter them.
The goal for the migration: maintain all current capabilities while adding capacity and streamlining the development of new capabilities. To achieve this, Leidos worked closely with the DOD to deliver the value outlined in the cloud business case.
A methodical migration approach
Rather than attempting a risky “big bang” migration – moving all data and systems at once – Leidos took an incremental deployment approach to complete the migration in less than a year.
“Big bang approaches usually require significant training and transition periods,” Jerald Willis, deputy product manager of Biometrics at the Army, explains. “If engineers discover technical issues, they usually require more complex resolutions.”
As David Jones, program manager for DOD ABIS at Leidos, notes, “We reduced the risk of operational impact, from the front-end workstation all the way to the back-end compute environment, by migrating pieces of the system that were grouped logically through incremental deployments.”
Starting with initial planning, design and architecture work, the team then executed each deployment phase, moving infrastructure, applications and data to AWS GovCloud.
“Big bang approaches usually require significant training and transition period. If engineers discover technical issues, they usually require more complex resolutions.”
Jerald Willis
U.S. Army Deputy Product Manager of Biometrics
Rather than simply “lifting and shifting” the existing system, the team made strategic improvements along the way.
“We made incremental architectural changes where it made sense,” notes Robert Johnston, chief engineer for the program. “For example, we replaced expensive database systems with cloud-native alternatives and implemented AWS’s managed Kubernetes service for improved system resilience.”
The upgrades allowed for more rapid deployment of cloud-native resources for compute, networking and storage, while reducing the amount of software licensing required for these hybrid technologies.
Enabling global operations
The cloud migration positions DOD ABIS to better serve its diverse user community spanning military, federal agency and international partner organizations. The system can seamlessly handle spikes in demand, ingest large batches of data or implement a new capability, providing enterprise modernization at pace and scale. Additional computing resources can be provisioned within minutes rather than the weeks or months previously required for hardware procurement.
“We don't always have the luxury of determining where the next use case is going to occur,” Burton says. “By operating in the cloud and getting off-premises, we support the agility necessary for DOD and other agencies to meet their global requirements at the edge.”
Looking ahead, the cloud foundation streamlines the addition of new capabilities such as advanced matching algorithms and expanded modalities. As Jones says, “It means we can channel more resources into new functionality and capabilities rather than just maintaining infrastructure – getting more tools into the hands of warfighters and interagency partners no matter where the mission takes them.”
