Snowflake Reinforces Commitment to Bringing Efficiency and Security-Driven Platforms to the Military and Defense Ecosystem with DOD IL5

The Department of Defense (DOD) is driving action toward improving readiness, rebuilding the military and industrial base, delivering the best systems available and ensuring fiscal accountability. Data is the underlying asset that must be leveraged to drive successful completion in these goals. As the DOD continues to evolve as a data-centric organization, storing and securely accessing controlled data is integral to operations — whether on the battlefield or in the back office — and the need for efficient and security-driven enterprise solutions is increasing. 

That’s why Snowflake is proud to announce that we have achieved DOD Impact Level 5 (IL5) provisional authorization (PA) on AWS GovCloud - US-West. With this authorization, Snowflake can now offer solutions to organizations requiring the DOD’s highest level of protection for controlled unclassified information (CUI) such as sensitive personally identifiable information, critical infrastructure security information or legal documents, along with mission-critical data and national security systems. 

The PA includes all agencies and military services within the DOD, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Combatant Commands, which can now use Snowflake. It also extends to eligible mission partners, related agencies, universities and the broader ecosystem, including manufacturing suppliers within the defense industrial base.

Snowflake can support the diverse spectrum of controlled unclassified information and data, enabling more efficient and secure operations across the defense ecosystem. Much of the defense ecosystem operates with CUI data, and this requires IL5 solutions that can ensure the appropriate data security and compliance. Our accreditation will allow government customers to deploy an end-to-end, fully managed and secure platform, from pilot initiatives to DOD-wide workloads. And for the industrial base and software partners, Snowflake can be part of the architecture that delivers solutions and services to the DOD.

The DOD recognizes that commercially available solutions and platforms are necessary to solve the most intractable problems. With Snowflake, the DOD will now have access to enhanced capabilities to use mission-critical data in support of operations that advance national security objectives. Here are just a few of many possible use cases: 

• Financial management: World-class financial management that accelerates mission readiness by offering a unified budgeting source, near real-time insights, enhanced accountability, comprehensive reporting and efficient cost management.

• Asset reliability and performance: Predictive maintenance, automated scheduling, digital twins and data/AI-driven rapid repair to enable increased uptime and reduced disruptions.

• Logistics and supply chain: Improved inventory management and operations through increased visibility, decision support, operational efficiency and demand forecasting.

• Cybersecurity: A holistic platform for unified data, near-unlimited visibility and powerful analytics that helps eliminate blind spots in security data, strengthens incident response through unified monitoring and provides a comprehensive repository for all security data. 

• Open source intelligence (OSINT): A means to enrich data from publicly available sources to accelerate decision-making, conduct policy research, gather sentiment analysis and perform economic forecasting. 

Snowflake can offer the DOD many other benefits, including built-in governance. Snowflake Horizon Catalog is a fully incorporated suite of security and compliance features that gives data governors and stewards the tools they need to protect their data on a granular level. And the platform incorporates efficiency at every stage — it's easy to use, and assists technical and nontechnical users alike. As a fully managed service, Snowflake is easy to deploy and patch, and easy to integrate with other solutions.

Ready to get started? Contact a public sector sales representative.