The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released its final Big Data Interoperability Framework meant to support the development of software tools that can perform data analysis in any computing environment. NIST said Tuesday the framework can also help analysts move their workloads across platforms.

“This framework is a reference for how to create an ‘agnostic’ environment for tool creation. If software vendors use the framework’s guidelines when developing analytical tools, then analysts’ results can flow uninterruptedly, even as their goals change and technology advances,” said Wo Chang, a NIST computer scientist.

The final framework consists of nine volumes and includes taxonomies and consensus definitions for software developers, privacy protections and data security requirements for software tools and a reference architecture interface specification to facilitate the deployment of such tools.

“The reference architecture interface specification will enable vendors to build flexible environments that any tool can operate in,” Chang said.

The Government Accountability Office has established an innovation lab to advance the use of analytics capabilities and emerging technologies to help improve the work of auditors and other government personnel.

GAO said Tuesday the formation of the lab is one of the tasks of the agency’s science, technology assessment and analytics team, which was created in January.

“Data analytics is the tradecraft of distilling hidden insights and enabling people to rapidly act on those insights,” said Taka Ariga, GAO’s first chief data scientist and director of the innovation lab. “In the user-centric environment of the Innovation Lab, by applying data science at scale and exploring emerging technologies such as machine learning and digital ledger, we will help the audit community address grand challenges.”

GAO said the innovation lab plans to leverage distributed ledger technology, AI and other emerging technologies to conduct audits of federal programs and save taxpayer dollars.

“Innovation Lab will help us collectively move the needle of the federal government, creating a space where we de-risk the use of innovative solutions and people can think about tackling challenges differently, allowing them to make better-informed decisions,” Ariga said.

Lt. Gen. Darrell Williams, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, has said that supply chain security is “every bit as important” as the logistics support the agency provides to military entities, Defense News reported Monday.

Williams told the publication in an interview that DLA is working to implement artificial intelligence and robotic process automation for inventory processing and increasing production. DLA is also experimenting with using bots for unassisted 24-hour monitoring and security activities, he noted.

“One of the things that we have done in DLA in just this past year is stand up an enterprise risk-management framework,” said Williams. “And then subordinate to that, we’ve stood up a supply chain security component of that, and then within supply chain security we’re looking very, very closely at cybersecurity.”

According to Williams, DLA has a “very strong vetting process” for its suppliers. The agency seeks to use commercial off-the-shelf AI technologies for warehouse management and demand planning in an effort to modernize operations while improving accuracy and accountability, he added.