A look at how the U.S. Department of Defense deploys the Grafana stack

In September 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) authorized the use of Grafana, Grafana Enterprise, and Grafana Loki, streamlining the deployment process for its 100,000 employees and contractors by eliminating the need for additional approvals. In a session at ObservabilityCon 2021, former U.S. Air Force Chief Software Officer Nicolas Chaillan and Grafana Labs’ VP of Global Solution Engineering Steve Mayzak discussed how the DoD utilizes the Grafana stack across various environments, including air-gapped systems and jets, by collecting telemetry data at both granular and global levels. They highlighted the importance of hybrid edge computing, noting that flexible models are essential for adapting technology to diverse military hardware such as submarines and jets. As AI and machine learning evolve, building trust in these technologies is crucial, and the DoD's observability strategy includes developing new training and management approaches. The discussion also touched on the ethical implications of open-source technology and the balance between monolithic and microservices architectures, emphasizing that the journey towards advanced observability is just beginning.