Advancing the defense system lifecycle with digital engineering on AWS

This article details how the US Department of War is implementing digital engineering on AWS to improve decision-making, accelerate delivery, and enhance collaboration throughout defense system lifecycles.

• Digital engineering integrates model-based systems engineering, digital threads, and digital twins as foundational technologies
• AWS GovCloud provides secure, compliant infrastructure for Impact Level 4 and 5 defense workloads
• Landing Zone Accelerator and SCCA framework establish secure multi-account foundation with governance controls
• Three specialized accounts extend architecture: shared services, end users, and digital engineering workloads
• Shared services account centralizes collaboration tools, license management, and identity services
• End users account provides virtual desktop infrastructure via Amazon WorkSpaces and Research Engineering Studio
• Digital engineering workload account enables data ingestion, workflow orchestration, simulations, and AI/ML analytics
• Practical example demonstrates predictive maintenance workflow using IoT, Kinesis, SageMaker, and S3 data lake
• AWS services enable rapid validation of models, digital twin management, and unified digital threads across program lifecycle

AWS provides a comprehensive, secure, and scalable platform for defense organizations to implement digital engineering practices and reduce total lifecycle costs.