The sprint, hosted at the AFWERX Vegas location, began by developing a roughly hewn problem statement of: “How might we create an opportunity for rapid experimentation and integration to the combined forces for the fight in any domain”. This design problem served as a starting point for identifying the true needs of the stakeholders throughout the sprint.

AF Cyberworx facilitated a three-day design sprint for Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability (AFWIC), focusing on the Shadow Ops Center (ShOC) from 3-5 March 2020. Key stakeholders from the ShOC, AFWIC, Air Combat Command (ACC), and 700th ASuS attended along with technical experts from Intelligent Waves LLC, LinQuest, Microsoft, Red Hat, Forcepoint LLC, World Wide Technologies, Introspective Networks, and VMware.

Sprint participants focused on identifying the value of the ShOC in its current state as well as what it could be become in the future. The team evaluated ShOC user needs along with what measures could transform its capability, not just for the Air Force, but for the whole of the US government and partner forces to advance the Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) initiatives.

• • Parametric Microservice (Enterprise Service of Technical Data Specification): a cloud-based multi-level security capability that provides relationship and security type tagging of data.
  • Token One: a single sign-on capability, with access to all previously established certs to avoid duplication/corruption at a single location.
  • ShOC Top: a portal system that a participant logs into, split between three software layers – presentation, business logic, and data/services. Workflows would be created to enforce any approval/request process and could call backend services for the specified task.
  • API Adapter Framework: a comprehensive middleware produce suite in order to meet functional requirements identified during the sprint.
  • API-Lites: teaming developers from the Joint and Coalition software development efforts will produce integration of capabilities through residual efforts. Co-locating these developers, with a focus on interoperability, will allow the production of the integrative services needed for JADC2. APIs, Data Integration Services, and leveraging existing applications can be conducted by the API-Lite teams.