Within the Department of Defense, Mission Partner Environments (MPEs) are crucial communications and collaboration environments that allow partners from across the services and across coalitions to exchange information and work together to advance shared interests.

These environments have unique requirements – from their architectures to their security and access controls, to interoperability. GDIT provides MPE support to all of the U.S. military’s combatant commands. Our teams design, build and maintain secure, stable environments that enable voice communication, electronic information sharing, video conferencing and more.

Establishing Connections in Even the Most Challenging & Complex Environments

Perhaps nowhere is the challenge of building and supporting MPEs greater than in the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) region, one of six geographic combatant commands. The USINDOPACOM area of responsibility is the largest, geographically, and it shares a border with each of the other five. It is culturally, socially, economically, and geopolitically diverse and consists of 36 nations, spans nine time zones, and thousands of miles.

In this region, MPEs are indispensable in supporting information sharing between the U.S and its partners. This sharing occurs through software, hardware and integrated processes designed to foster strategic and tactical collaboration through the intelligence data exchange.

When implementing new MPEs, we work closely with partner nations in the region. The mission involves surveying locations and materials and then building out a local MPE environment. We ensure the proper connectivity and infrastructure is in place to allow for stable and secure communications among defense and intelligence leaders. In this way, our experience, understanding of the mission and technological expertise enables us to design, build and implement MPEs with partners.

In the USINDOPACOM region in particular, we leverage satellites, cloud technology and commercial cabling secured by the U.S. Command. The mission demands security best practices across Zero Trust, Identity Credentialing and Access Management (ICAM), and diverse data collection and management tools to enable the kind of information sharing necessary within an MPE.

Evolving Threats Mean Evolving Approaches to the Work

The threats in the USINDOPACOM region are many, and our work has never been more important. We are constantly deploying new and emerging technologies, strengthening our security posture, expanding to new partners, and leveraging our experience to create the MPE of the future. Most recently, the team confronted the challenges inherent to the region alongside the challenges of COVID-19. The pandemic put a spotlight on the value of MPEs and what we do, and why countries need this type of secure, virtual communication both in wartime and in peace time.

As the global trend toward coalitions continues, the United States is doing a lot jointly and in partnership with allies around the world to advance our shared interests and collective security. GDIT is proud to be a trusted mission partner helping to ensure the United States remains at the forefront of MPE development and support.

We look forward to continuing to support and evolve this critical work in a complex and essential region.