Atlassian’s collaboration software helps government teams all over the world work better together and deliver mission success. And in a time where technology modernization is most critical for government agencies, powerful tools that fuel methodologies like DevSecOps can make a real difference for government agencies and the citizens they serve. Because of this, we are proud to announce that our industry-leading DevSecOps tools are now available on the United States Air Force (USAF) Platform One 5-year, $95M BOA 2 for DevSecOps Tools, Pipeline, and Platform Integration and Licensing. This next-generation contract covers everything needed for a hardened DevSecOps environment – cloud services, secure containers, software tools, consulting expertise, troubleshooting, and support. And it comes with procurement mechanics that make it simple and quick for agencies to get exactly what they need, when they need it.
Why does the Department of Defense care about software?
The United States Department of Defense (DoD) has been the single largest procurer of software in the world, and one of the most influential designers of software standards. In 1985, the DoD authored the DOD-STD-2167A, which codified much of the waterfall development approach and made it the required core practice for defense contractors (and accordingly influenced other standards and organizations). Over the years, the DoD has continued to develop standards that have laid the foundations for organizations of all sizes to develop, deploy, and maintain software.
Initially, software was just the means to enable the hardware and platforms needed for the DoD mission. It was the glue between a hardware controller and physical motion. Or, it transported a signal from a sensor to a platform. Today, software is the primary enabler for the DoD enterprise, mission, and combat systems. It underpins the essential capabilities to sense, share, plan, coordinate, and act, and is present in almost everything that the DoD operates and uses. As a result, there is no more critical foundation element for the Defense Department to fuel, or to protect.
However, as with most innovation adopted by commercial companies, the evolution of software development increased at a pace that the DoD has not been able to keep up with. Part of this is by design: the DoD routinely fuels commercial innovation so that it can benefit from thousands of organizations advancing a single capability at once. Part of this is due to the need for the DoD to systematically inspect, confirm, and standardize components before putting them into active use, which takes time. And part is due to the way in which the DoD has procured software in the past, much of it aligned to the waterfall-based 2167A standard and its follow-on, MIL-STD-498.
The cultural and process entrenchment in these standards has made it extraordinarily difficult for the DoD to move to agile methodologies. It has required changes in norms, manpower and training, new standards for how the DoD creates software, and changes to how it procures software tools, components, and applications.
U.S. Air Force Platform One leads the way for DevSecOps adoption
The United States Air Force (USAF) shares responsibility for the DoD Enterprise DevSecOps Initiative. As part of its DevSecOps charter, the USAF stood up Platform One by LevelUP Codeworks. LevelUP Codeworks is a U.S. Air Force software development organization working to transform DoD software acquisition into secure, responsive software factories. Platform One is a centralized team providing agile software development capabilities with baked-in security to DoD Programs. Together, they are changing the landscape of DoD software development and acquisition.
Using a startup mindset that replaces bureaucracy with innovation and collaboration, LevelUP is adopting commercial DevSecOps best practices and employing continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) software pipelines. Beyond the technology, LevelUP is transforming how the DoD acquires and re-uses software development tools, components, and code. This dual focus is both innovative and critical for DoD success. Engineering and acquisition go hand-in-hand for the DoD – one cannot evolve without the other.
The DevSecOps mission with Atlassian
As part of its forward-looking acquisition approach, Platform One released three Basic Ordering Agreements (BOA) that cover cloud services, talent, and software licenses. The BOAs is to provide the Government with the ability to access a vetted contractor pool to support an accelerated path to contract award. As a result, using the BOAs eliminates the need for individual defense program offices to conduct additional market research, and has been shown to cut the total acquisition time by over 75%.
Atlassian is proud to announce that our powerful DevSecOps tools are now available on Platform One’s 5-year, $95M BOA 2 for DevSecOps Tools, Pipeline, and Platform Integration and Licensing. The BOA was recently awarded to Carahsoft, the trusted government Atlassian solutions provider. Support, services, and expertise are also available, in partnership with Atlassian government resellers and Carahsoft.
This makes it faster and easier than ever for DoD teams to fuel mission success with industry-leading DevSecOps tools, practices and support from Atlassian.
- Jira Software helps all teams plan, track, and work more efficiently. It helps software teams build better software using agile methodologies, enables business teams to collaborate and improve throughput, and eliminates duplication by integrating with existing tools and accelerate agile processes with task automation.
- Jira Service Desk makes it easy for every team to be a service-oriented team. With easy-to-use ticketing and tracking, exceptional mission support can be achieved across a variety of functional areas, including DevSecOps. It brings development, operations, and support together to accelerate service requests.
- Confluence collaborative workspaces let you unleash your team’s full potential. Leverage best-practice templates to avoid reinvention and build a culture of transparency and shared responsibility. Project posters, incident reviews, and health monitors are just a few examples of Confluence pages that boost communications and project flow.
- Bitbucket tightly integrates with the rest of the Atlassian stack and provides git code management, giving teams one place to collaborate, test, and deploy software. Integrated pull requests, merge checklists, and inline comments make code reviews and discussions more efficient.
- Bamboo professional build server centralizes and tracks requirements, tasks, and results, enabling continuous delivery by connecting builds, security and functional testing, and releases into a single workflow.
The BOA covers everything needed for a hardened DevSecOps environment – cloud services, secure containers, software tools, consulting expertise, troubleshooting, and support.
Ensure a fast start to DevSecOps practice, and smooth operations
While many teams can deploy and utilize agile tools with little or no assistance, others may benefit from additional support and expertise. Atlassian has a wide variety of verified government solution partners that have the depth and breadth of experience to assist with any deployment, integration, and operational issues that may arise. As part of the BOA, teams can request engineering expertise for integrating software tools into the LevelUP platform or troubleshooting deployment and operational issues. Subject matter experts are available to evaluate needs and capabilities, research available commercial tools, and recommend the best options.
Available now from Carahsoft
This contract covers a range of services for the LevelUP software hub to integrate into their operations. Software titles, tools, and other capabilities support DevOps and DevSecOps approaches to development, integration, and testing of the Department of Defense cloud and hybrid systems at any classification level.
Atlassian and Carahsoft are committed to helping DoD and other government agencies select and implement the best solution for their needs at the best possible value. For more information about Atlassian products and services available through this and other federal government contracts, please contact Atlassian Solutions for Government.