U.S. Space Force's Kobayashi Maru adopts Mattermost to securely collaborate on modernizing space capabilities

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is home to several innovation programs with sci-fi-inspired names, but only Kobayashi Maru boldly codes for the final frontier. As part of the U.S. Space Force, the West Coast-based software shop employs agile development to modernize legacy systems that track objects in orbit and develop new warfighter capabilities for the domain.

In Star Trek, Kobayashi Maru is a training simulation that puts Starfleet Academy cadets into a no-win situation — until future Enterprise Capt. James T. Kirk rejects the concept of an unwinnable situation and reprograms the exercise. DoD’s homage embraces the spirit of overcoming impossible odds by working closely with space operators to fix the most significant technical issues in space domain awareness, defense, electronic warfare, and cyber operations. Kobayashi Maru’s team of 500 software developers and support staff provides mission-critical tools to more than 3,000 users around the globe, including other military branches and close allies. 

Collaborating with globally dispersed partners is challenging enough, but Kobayashi Maru also handles sensitive information that requires tighter security controls. With security top of mind, the software organization chose Mattermost to gain complete control of its data while complying with DoD standards and satisfying users with a familiar interface. 

Boosting security with compliant collaboration tools

Kobayashi Maru had been using another commercially available collaboration tool, but increasing security concerns sparked a re-evaluation of its tools. Like many DoD organizations, Kobayashi Maru deals with controlled unclassified information (CUI), which has strict handling guidelines and systems security requirements. The team’s day-to-day operations required frequent switches between different systems as they collaborated, but only some of these tools adequately complied with CUI rules. Team members risked accidentally sharing sensitive information on non-compliant systems, which DoD calls “data compromise.”

At the time, no cloud-based collaboration products had been accredited by the federal government’s primary security accreditation program FedRAMP, so Chief Technology Officer Anwar Chirakkattil sought other solutions. Two of the U.S. Air Force’s major software development programs and frequent Kobayashi Maru partners — Platform One and Kessel Run, where Chirakkattil had previously worked — had already adopted Mattermost as a centralized, secure communications tool. 

For Chirakkattil, a large part of Mattermost’s appeal was its ability to self-host the platform in Azure. The customizable security, access, and compliance controls established a CUI-compliant environment for chatting and asking questions. The group took ownership of its data, gaining control over managing and storing it. This level of data sovereignty allows Kobayashi Maru to improve its security posture and reduce risks associated with cross-border data transfers and various legal frameworks.

The move had other benefits too, Chirakkattil said, including a more thorough vetting of users. Active Directory is tightly integrated with Mattermost, allowing it to serve as the “single source of truth” for access and streamlining onboarding and offboarding processes for the service desk team. It’s just one part of Kobayashi Maru’s defense-in-depth strategy.

“We couldn’t afford it if somebody could get into our workspaces,” Chirakkattil says. “It’s a real concern.” 

Getting user buy-in by focusing on their experience

Complying with DoD security policies was the main impetus for Kobayashi Maru adopting Mattermost, as remaining on their existing SaaS platform was not an option, Chirakkattil explained to internal teams. “They understand the bigger picture of why we’re switching, which was data — owning the data.” 

However, Chirakkattil presented internal teams with multiple products to test drive. The process was highly involved; trials lasted a few months while teams worked through feedback and sorted features into the must-haves and the nice-to-haves. “We let our internal product teams tell us what really met their requirements,” he continues. 

Ultimately, the team selected Mattermost; the platform’s familiar interface made transitioning to the new tool simple from a user experience standpoint. They particularly liked theme options and features like conversation threading and the ability to group channels together. Most importantly, the switch to Mattermost ensured secure channels for chatting and asking questions without the risk of data compromise. 

Creating the foundation for a single knowledge base

By establishing a CUI-complaint collaboration platform, Kobayashi Maru’s Mattermost instance functions as a definitive knowledge base for the organization. Though the organization has only widely used the platform since spring, the team expects to use the plugin framework to integrate the productivity tools it relies on into Mattermost’s searchable environment. With Mattermost performing security checks on major third-party integrations, the team is confident in using solutions found in Mattermost’s robust marketplace.

Additionally, the team at Kobayashi Maru has already incorporated alerts from Grafana, an open source monitoring and analytics tool, which it couldn’t do in its previous SaaS solution due to CUI rules. Chirakkattil envisions a future state where Mattermost unifies the disconnected systems used to track incident responses into one channel that includes a Grafana alert, a Jira ticket, and all the conversations to resolve an issue. Viewing historical discussions is a powerful tool for keeping new staff and users up to date on current happenings.  

Next steps for Kobayashi Maru 

Kobayashi Maru’s embrace of data sovereignty also opens new possibilities for implementing artificial intelligence tools to make the entire team more efficient and productive. They’re exploring options like tools to summarize Mattermost activity for super-busy leaders who are part of 50 or more channels. Another possibility is using large language models to find new insights from their own data to improve their operations.

Kobayashi Maru’s adoption of Mattermost as a secure, self-hosted collaboration platform demonstrates the U.S. Space Force’s commitment to modernizing its systems while maintaining the highest standards of data security and compliance — and, ultimately, creating cutting-edge software to secure operations in a contested domain. 

Please note: This capability was assessed and delivered directly from the platform provider and not procured or integrated by the government.