Airgapped Network Upgrade for Multinational Joint Operations

Led a multinational team through the design and rollout of upgrade procedures for a mission-critical airgapped network supporting joint operations across allied armed forces.

✓ Delivered on schedule; secure high-assurance connectivity re-established across the joint-operations network

References available upon request →
📅 2016 – 2019 Security Architecture Palo Alto Networks Airgapped Networks Security Architecture Team Leadership

Approach

As team lead and principal engineer, directed a multinational team spanning 11 sub-teams across 5 partner nations in designing and rolling out upgrade procedures for a mission-critical airgapped network supporting joint operations between allied armed forces.

Implementation

  • Led the technical program as team lead and principal engineer, coordinating 11 sub-teams across 5 partner nations
  • Designed upgrade procedures for firewall infrastructure (Palo Alto PA-5250) operating entirely without external network connectivity — the specifics stay behind classification, but at its core it was the standard problem of patching, licensing, and refreshing threat intelligence on hardware that can never touch the internet, solved at multinational scale
  • Established secure operating and validation procedures to guarantee zero disruption to live joint-operations traffic during the upgrade window
  • Acted as the technical bridge between engineering teams operating under different national security frameworks, aligning them to a single execution plan

Outcome

Delivered the upgrade on schedule, with secure high-assurance connectivity re-established across the joint-operations network without incident — a result that depended as much on coordinating five nations' worth of process and clearance requirements as on the engineering itself.

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