U.S. DoD Command Secures Developer Productivity with Coder on AWS

A U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) command responsible for advancing national security through technology innovation needed to support hundreds of developers and data scientists working across both classified and unclassified domains. With missions that demand speed, security, and adaptability, the command sought a better way to deliver resources at scale while safeguarding sensitive data.

Challenges

The customer’s development teams faced several barriers:

• Hardware limitations slowed training of machine learning models on local laptops.
• Security concerns made it critical to protect sensitive training data against potential breaches.
• Underutilized and idle cloud resources led to unnecessary costs.
• Inefficient onboarding with VDI and fragmented setups frustrated developers and slowed productivity.

The command needed a secure, centralized platform that could deliver high-performance resources while reducing inefficiencies and risk.

Solution

With Coder, the DoD command deployed a secure development platform on AWS GovCloud designed for both software development and MLOps. Key elements included:

• On-demand cloud power: Access to GPU-backed AWS EC2 instances for fast, resource-intensive model training.
• Ephemeral workspaces: Isolated environments that spun up quickly, shut down cleanly, and reduced operational risk.
• Centralized data protection: Sensitive training data secured with robust encryption through AWS Key Management Service (KMS).
• Cost efficiency: Automated shutdown of idle cloud resources prevented waste and optimized resource availability.
• Developer-first tooling: Native support for VS Code, Jupyter, and PyCharm integrated seamlessly with existing workflows.

Outcomes

By standardizing on Coder, the DoD command realized measurable gains:

• Faster model training: Scalable cloud resources removed hardware bottlenecks and accelerated delivery.
• Improved security posture: Centralized, encrypted environments met strict defense compliance requirements.
• Reduced costs: Automated shutdowns significantly lowered cloud spend.
• Greater developer satisfaction: Teams accessed powerful resources while working with the tools they preferred.

Development environments that meet evolving mission demands

For this DoD command, Coder provided the balance of speed, security, and control needed to meet evolving mission demands. Developers moved faster, platform teams gained oversight, and the organization optimized its cloud investment—all within a secure, compliant environment built for national defense.