VA’s Platform One Offers Sandbox to Software Developers

Modeled after the Defense Department’s enterprise software container platforms, the Department of Veterans Affairs stood up its own Platform One application in 2021 to drive software modernization within the agency. Matthew Fuqua, technical lead for VA’s Platform One, told GovCIO Media & Research that the sandbox environment enables software developers to safely experiment and build applications using protected data.

He said his team took inspiration from similar endeavors in federal government and built a platform where developers can focus their efforts solely on coding. Fuqua said that Platform One’s ethos is centered around “speed, stability, scale and security.” Each tenet bolsters VA’s mission of providing services through software that can benefit veterans.

Platform One supports VA’s DevSecOps strategy to streamline its operations and shift away from the traditional waterfall approach to software development that hinders innovation at speed. In a DevSecOps environment, Fuqua’s team is able to monitor, update and secure troves of data rapidly, shortening processes that used to take days down to hours. Fuqua added that AI has opened the door to new applications, but data security is paramount when considering building new software.