Foundry: A Training Asset Management Portal
Before 2018, cyber training and exercises were distributed using separate, stove-piped contracts and platforms, which made it difficult to leverage high-quality cyber training and exercises broadly across the DoD. The SEI researched modern platform theory and design to develop Foundry, a next-generation cyber-training asset-management portal. Foundry connects cyber training content users, sponsors, and developers in a shared environment where available content is registered for users to consume, rate, and add to playlists.
Foundry implements the latest industry and DoD standards for interoperability, allowing it to bring together independent, pluggable components. Because of this modular design, training providers can focus on developing innovative content without worrying about hardware stacks or other technical infrastructure. Using Foundry, organizations can integrate different training provider platforms and tools without having to make a long-term commitment to a single provider. This approach encourages innovation and competition among training providers on the platform and motivates the production of increasingly effective cyber training.
Foundry logs and monitors learner ratings and reviews to track the best training available on various topics. Foundry can use those ratings and reviews to better match learners and their teams to the most appropriate training for their roles and responsibilities. Using Foundry, cyber training developers can select from many different content providers to assemble the most realistic, effective training possible, while considering user ratings and reviews to help assess training quality and effectiveness.
Under USCYBERCOM sponsorship, a prototype instance of Foundry was made available in 2018 to anyone issued a DoD Common Access Card (CAC)—seamlessly integrating cyber training content from multiple legacy and next-generation content provider platforms.