The U.S. Army is changing how it delivers secure software to soldiers with the launch of UDS Army, a platform developed through a partnership between Defense Unicorns and the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) C5ISR Center. This new system aims to speed up the continuous delivery of mission-ready software by addressing the slow and costly Authorization to Operate (ATO) process.
“The Authorization to Operate (ATO) process takes too long and costs too much, locking out innovative companies and delaying capabilities our soldiers need now,” said Rob Slaughter, CEO of Defense Unicorns. “By collaborating with DEVCOM C5ISR, we’re enabling a faster, safer, and more sustainable way to get secure software into soldiers’ hands.”
UDS Army provides commercial software vendors with a streamlined path to bring their capabilities to Army missions at Impact Level (IL) 4 and 5. It combines secure DevSecOps pipelines with pre-authorized Microsoft Azure Government cloud environments, reducing the time and cost barriers that have traditionally slowed software deployment.
Proving compliance for national security systems has been a costly and time-consuming challenge, especially for smaller vendors. The traditional ATO process can take 12 to 18 months and hundreds of engineering hours, delaying critical software capabilities for warfighters.
“For the Department of War, the ability to securely deploy software at speed is a strategic imperative, one that directly underpins operational advantage and long-term modernization. Defense Unicorns is accelerating this shift, and Microsoft is excited to be part of an ecosystem that brings secure, cloud-enabled capabilities to the heart of mission execution,” said Leigh Madden, Microsoft’s Vice President for National Security.
The UDS Army platform integrates several technical capabilities into a unified system. These include an authorized DevSecOps pipeline that automates security scanning, vulnerability checks, and compliance validation to generate the evidence needed for Approval to Operate (AO). Pre-authorized environments at IL4 and IL5 allow approved applications to inherit the compliance posture of authorized Army cloud infrastructure, eliminating the need for separate ATOs.
Additionally, the Army App Marketplace offers a secure catalog where approved applications can be discovered, demoed, and acquired by Army program managers. Vendors can also use sandbox trial environments at IL2, IL4, and IL5 to allow Army customers to try applications before acquisition.
The platform supports portable UDS packages that work across SaaS, cloud, on-premises, and tactical edge environments without requiring rebuilds or re-architecting. Continuous compliance automation maintains compliance artifacts to streamline updates and control inheritance. SaaS hosting in the cARMY Cloud enables SaaS-native vendors to deliver applications directly within the Army’s secure cloud environments.
UDS Army is designed to help small and mid-sized software companies succeed in the national security ecosystem by reducing time-to-market, lowering compliance costs, increasing discoverability, and simplifying SaaS hosting. The ATO timeline can shrink from 18 months to as little as 2 weeks, and documentation expenses can be cut by more than 70%. Approved applications are published in the Army App Marketplace, and deployment to pre-authorized IL4 and IL5 environments is simplified.
Software vendors such as HERE, Kana Systems, Lastwall, Petra Data, Sandtable, and Selas Defense have begun onboarding to UDS Army.
For program managers, UDS Army provides an “easy button” to acquire, test, and deploy secure commercial applications. Leveraging a marketplace of pre-approved software allows the Army to modernize mission systems faster, reduce acquisition costs, and deliver critical digital capabilities directly to soldiers.
Defense Unicorns, a service-disabled, veteran-owned defense technology company founded in 2021, builds open-source, airgap-native technologies that enable secure development, delivery, and sustainment of mission software across cloud, on-premises, and tactical edge environments. Their technology is trusted by operators of critical systems in the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, and Space Force.