SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Today, Defense Unicorns, the leader in airgap software delivery for national security mission systems, announced UDS Army, a new approach cooperatively developed with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) C5ISR Center, will accelerate the continuous delivery of secure, mission-ready software to soldiers.
“The Authorization to Operate (ATO) process takes too long and costs too much, locking out innovative companies and delaying capabilities our soldiers need now,” said Rob Slaughter, CEO of Defense Unicorns. “By collaborating with DEVCOM C5ISR, we’re enabling a faster, safer, and more sustainable way to get secure software into soldiers’ hands.”
UDS Army gives commercial software vendors a fast and simple path to bring their capabilities to Army missions at Impact Level (IL) 4 and 5, by combining secure DevSecOps pipelines with pre-authorized Microsoft Azure Government cloud environments.
Proving that applications are compliant for national security systems is often prohibitively costly and time-consuming, especially for small, independent software vendors. Earning an ATO through the traditional self-managed authorization process can take 12 to 18 months and require hundreds of engineering hours, leaving warfighters waiting for critical software capabilities.
“For the Department of War, the ability to securely deploy software at speed is a strategic imperative, one that directly underpins operational advantage and long-term modernization. Defense Unicorns is accelerating this shift, and Microsoft is excited to be part of an ecosystem that brings secure, cloud-enabled capabilities to the heart of mission execution,” said Leigh Madden, Microsoft’s Vice President for National Security.
UDS Army combines multiple technical capabilities into a unified platform:
- Authorized DevSecOps Pipeline: Automated security scanning, vulnerability checks, and compliance validation generate the body of evidence needed for AO approval.
- Pre-Authorized Environments (IL4/IL5): Approved applications inherit the compliance posture of authorized Army cloud infrastructure, eliminating the need to pursue a separate ATO.
- Army App Marketplace: A secure catalog where approved applications can be discovered, demoed, and acquired by Army program managers.
- Sandbox Trial Environments: Vendors can demo applications in IL2, IL4, and IL5 sandboxes hosted on a uds.army.mil domain, allowing Army customers to “try before they buy.”
- Portable UDS Packages: A single integration supports SaaS, cloud, on-prem, and tactical edge environments — no rebuilds or re-architecting.
- Continuous Compliance Automation: Ongoing generation and maintenance of compliance artifacts (e.g., SBOMs) streamlines updates and control inheritance.
- SaaS Hosting in cARMY Cloud: Enables SaaS-native vendors to deliver applications directly within the Army’s secure cloud environments.
UDS Army is built to help small and mid-sized software companies succeed in the national security ecosystem:
- Reduce Time-to-Market: Shrink the ATO timeline from 18 months to as little as 2 weeks.
- Lower Compliance Costs: Reduce documentation expenses by more than 70%.
- Increase Discoverability: Approved applications are published in the Army App Marketplace
- Simplify SaaS Hosting: Deploy applications to pre-authorized IL4 and IL5 environments
Software vendors have already begun onboarding to UDS Army, with the first cohort including: HERE, Kana Systems, Lastwall, Petra Data, Sandtable, and Selas Defense. You can view the growing list of companies onboarding to UDS Army at uds.army.mil.
UDS Army gives program managers the “easy button” to acquire, test, and deploy secure commercial applications. By leveraging a marketplace of pre-approved software, the Army can modernize mission systems faster, reduce acquisition costs, and deliver critical digital capabilities directly to soldiers.
Defense Unicorns is onboarding software vendors today. To fast-track your applications to the Army, visit https://defenseunicorns.com/uds-army.
About Defense Unicorns
Defense Unicorns is a service-disabled, veteran-owned defense technology company founded in 2021 to make software a strategic deterrent for the U.S. Department of War. The company builds open-source, airgap-native technologies that enable the secure development, delivery, and sustainment of mission software across cloud, on-premises, and tactical edge environments. Defense Unicorns’ technology is trusted by the operators of some of the most critical systems in the world, including the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, and Space Force. Learn more at https://defenseunicorns.com.
SOURCE Defense Unicorns
