The U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) is moving to implement a data mesh aimed at bringing structure to its expanding data environment and speeding up decision-making, according to Kajal Pal, DC3’s division chief for Architecture Management of Data and Enterprise.
According to Pal, the initiative will create a flexible ecosystem enabling agencies and vendors to generate and use data on demand.
“We are making sure that our vendors or our other agencies using the metadata, can create their own products and generate the data on demand,” Pal said. “So, we are creating the ecosystem for our supply chain and for other agencies to collect, analyze, and make an intelligent decision at the right time,” Pal said at a recent Federal News Network webinar.
He highlighted integration challenges, noting that without proper synchronization, data systems risk becoming outdated. The effort will incorporate dynamic metadata tagging to enhance insights from data lakes, including software risks and deployment details.
The initiative also seeks to integrate cyber data with financial and HR systems, enabling more real-time cybersecurity decision-making. DC3 is building a software factory to support the effort, with Pal estimating it could reduce operational overhead by up to 40%.