Lockheed Martin Taps Red Hat to Accelerate F-22 Raptor Upgrades

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) worked with Red Hat to modernize the application development process used to bring new capabilities to the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of F-22 Raptor fighter jets.

Through an eight-week Red Hat Open Innovation Labs residency, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics replaced the waterfall development process it used for F-22 Raptor upgrades with an agile methodology and DevSecOps practices that are more adaptive to the needs of the U.S. Air Force. Together, Lockheed Martin and Red Hat created an open architecture based on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform that has enabled the F-22 team to accelerate application development and delivery.

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is one of the world’s premier fighter jets, thanks to its unique combination of stealth, speed, agility, and situational awareness. Lockheed Martin is working with the U.S. Air Force on innovative, agile new ways to deliver the Raptor’s critical capabilities to warfighters faster and more affordably.

The F-22 is the world’s most dominant fighter, but potential adversaries continue to develop capabilities intended to challenge the ability of U.S. and allied air forces to gain and maintain air superiority. Maintaining that asymmetric advantage requires a constant focus on rapid innovation.

The traditional waterfall development process was not getting critical capabilities to the warfighter fast enough. It previously took five to seven years to identify requirements and release new capabilities for the existing architecture, initially built in the early 1990s. That time-consuming process, along with code quality and integration issues, led to onerous rework and customization, resulting in a platform that no longer met Lockheed Martin’s expectations for software-led innovation.

For Lockheed Martin, keeping the F-22 Raptor out front was not simply about upgrading its hardware and deploying a modern software platform. Instead, it also sought to create a team culture rooted in innovation and collaboration to transform its approach to application development. To do this, Lockheed wanted to adopt principles and frameworks common in software lexicon like agile, scrum, minimum viable product (MVP) and DevSecOps.

Lockheed Martin chose Red Hat Open Innovation Labs to lead them through the agile transformation process and help them implement an open source architecture onboard the F-22 and simultaneously disentangle its web of embedded systems to create something more agile and adaptive to the needs of the U.S. Air Force. Red Hat Open Innovation Labs’ dual-track approach to digital transformation combined enterprise IT infrastructure modernization and, through hands-on instruction, helped Lockheed’s team adopt agile development methodologies and DevSecOps practices.

Following a discovery session and architectural review, Red Hat stood up an environment based on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, the company’s trusted enterprise Kubernetes platform. OpenShift is optimized for developer productivity and frictionless innovation while helping customers address the IT challenges of security, operations management, and the integration of applications and container management. OpenShift is powered by the trusted foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, one of the industry’s most certified operating systems and the first with support for Linux container technology to receive the Common Criteria certification, making the platform well-suited to meet the high standards for security set by Lockheed Martin and its customers.

During the Open Innovation Labs engagement, a cross-functional team of five developers, two operators, and a product owner worked together to develop a new application for the F-22 on OpenShift. After seeing an early impact with the initial project team, within six months, Lockheed Martin had scaled its OpenShift deployment and use of agile methodologies and DevSecOps practices to a 100-person F-22 development team.

Lockheed Martin’s agile transformation has paid off. During a recent enablement session, the F-22 Raptor scrum team improved its ability to forecast for future sprints by 40%. This summer, only one year after kicking off the project, Lockheed Martin is slated to deliver new communications capabilities on the aircraft three years ahead of schedule. Lockheed Martin is continuing to scale this approach to the entire F-22 development organization.

Red Hat Open Innovation Labs worked with Lockheed Martin to not only transform its culture, process and technologies but to also rethink how the team physically works. By knocking down walls and creating open spaces to work in its new dojo, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor development team now has a dedicated space for continued learning, thinking and problem-solving, providing the opportunity to scale out the collaborative DevSecOps culture that is delivering new software-defined innovation to the U.S. Air Force.

Press webcast
Red Hat will host a press conference live from Red Hat Summit at 11 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 8. Following remarks, press and analysts are invited to participate in a live question and answer session.

To register for the press conference or view the replay after the event, visit https://onlinexperiences.com/Launch/QReg/ShowUUID=45D50AF9-7E2C-4F8C-8606-B85EBDA927AC

Supporting Quotes
Paul Smith, senior vice president and general manager, Public Sector, Red Hat
“Lockheed Martin developed one of the fastest fighter jets in the world and needed a development process to match that speed. Through its work with Red Hat Open Innovation Labs, Lockheed Martin has been able to integrate DevOps practices like domain-driven design and lean thinking into their environments. Now, reduced planning times are allowing for faster release cycles that can deliver significant benefits to the U.S. Air Force.”

Michael Cawood, vice president, F-16/F-22 Product Development, Lockheed Martin
“When you have a world-renowned platform like the F-22 Raptor, adversaries are constantly looking for ways to counter it. This means we must constantly add capabilities and improve the F-22. And we must do it faster than ever before. We needed to transform our own organization and how we did things. By working with the Red Hat Open Innovation Labs team, we changed everything ‒ our toolchain, our process, and most importantly, our culture. With our new culture firmly rooted in DevSecOps and agile, and a more flexible platform based on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, the F-22 team will continue its work to ensure the Raptor meets America’s defense needs.”

Additional Resources

Connect with Red Hat

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to our pending merger with International Business Machines Corporation, the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; delays or reductions in information technology spending; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; risks related to errors or defects in our offerings and third-party products upon which our offerings depend; risks related to the security of our offerings and other data security vulnerabilities; fluctuations in exchange rates; changes in and a dependence on key personnel; the effects of industry consolidation; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to meet financial and operational challenges encountered in our international operations; and ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Red Hat logo and OpenShift are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.