The Defense Department’s ability to withstand and recover from disruptions ultimately depends on its ability to maintain command and control — and that starts with having a clear picture of the data flowing across its IT and operational technology environments.

Brian Chamberlain, business development lead for the federal sector at SolarWinds, said the department needs to be able to collect, protect and understand its data. It’s essential for turning that information into actionable insights commanders can use, he explained during Federal News Network’s Cyber Leaders Exchange 2026.

“What we need in order to enable that command and control is we have to have supremacy of our data,” Chamberlain said. “But we first have to be able to command and control our own environment in order to enable command and control in the physical realm.”

To enable data supremacy, establishing a common operational picture of the entire IT and cyber landscape is essential, Chamberlain said.

“Ask the question within your own organization, ‘Do I have a common operational picture?’ That is the first thing,” he said. “At SolarWinds, we call that observability as well, and that’s the ability to see the entire information technology infrastructure or the entire network.”

And as operational technology environments become increasingly connected to IT networks, the line between those two environments has blurred, raising questions about who is responsible for securing OT systems.

“The federal government is already making strides in doing this, and that is to really expand the responsibility of those IT and cybersecurity professionals to include that gap between those two environments because this is exactly where the enemy has parked itself,” Chamberlain said.

In addition, agencies also need a clear picture of the workforce managing those systems.

“We have to look at that entire picture for our workforce as well. Putting all of that together really gives us a much more comprehensive view of what this battlespace is,” he said.

In addition to having greater visibility into the workforce, government agencies also need the right tools and training to do their jobs effectively. 

Too often, federal agencies introduce a new set of tools, only to replace them with another set shortly after, Chamberlain noted.

As a result, cyber workers often are too busy learning how to use different tools instead of focusing on the mission drivers of their jobs, he said.

“They are not actually doing their job, in my opinion. Their job, I believe, is actually to exercise judgment — not just to learn tools and swivel around from console to console,” Chamberlain said.

He offered a metaphor: “Imagine if everyone in the battlefield had to run out to a sporting goods store to buy their own weapon system. Imagine how difficult that must be to work geometries of fire. That’s incredibly difficult to plan for.”

Instead, Chamberlain recommended that agencies and their vendor partners make sure that workforce and training needs are a central element in the planning and acquiring of new technologies and toolsets.

“We need to give them tools, but we also need to give them the ability to actually exercise judgment in their field. They are not just answering the mail.”

Discover more articles and videos now on our Cyber Leaders Exchange 2026 event page.

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