There’s always that one friend who’s cool first.
You know the type. They started wearing Vans before Stunnaman and Lil B did the Vans song with the Wolfpack. (Back before Shane Morris was even rooomates with the boys from The Wolfpack. Yeah, that long ago.) They owned vinyl when you thought Spotify was enough. They knew the band when the band still had to carry their own amps.
For us, that friend was Mage.
Long before data engineers whispered about “declarative pipelines” and “open-source ELT nirvana,” we were on the Mage train. Why? Because it worked. Because it was clean. Because Tommy Dang (yes, the Tommy Dang — founder and lowkey genius) made something in the commercial sector that didn’t feel like enterprise garbage wrapped in Kubernetes buzzwords.
And yet, we couldn’t use it for federal. Not out of the box.
You can’t exactly walk into IL-5 with a pip install and a dream.
Step 1: Make the Simple, Complicated (but Secure)
So we did what defense tech does best:
We took something elegant and added layers.
Mage — beautiful, minimalist Mage — got introduced to its new reality.
- Hardened Containers: No external dependencies. No mystery libraries from 2016 quietly running under the hood. Every single element — defined, baked, locked.
- Keycloak Integration: Because CAC + SSO + PKI + “please don’t make me login again” is mandatory in 2025. Yes, it’s CAC-compatible now. It even politely tells you “ACCESS DENIED” if you forget your cert.
- Microservices Everywhere: Why stop at one container when you can have 12? Mage now runs modular — the kind of modular that makes your architect happy and your DevSecOps guy cry tears of joy.
Step 2: Deconstruct, Refactor, Repeat
Here’s the thing about federal systems — it’s never just about one app. It’s about every app.
So while we were cracking Mage apart like ribs at the cookout, we also built a framework for everything else. Now, whether it’s your outdated HR tool or your random C2 dashboard coded by a guy who left in 2018, we can get it into our hardened, microservices-friendly, SWIFT-approved architecture.
Yeah, that’s right: SWIFT.
You heard about it May 1.
We were ready for it April 1.
Call us precognitive. Or just good at reading federal tea leaves.
Step 3: IL-4, IL-5, IL-6? All Green Lights.
Of course, compliance matters. So we tuned the whole stack for multi-environment deployment:
- IL-4? Check.
- IL-5? Check.
- IL-6? Check — yes, we got Mage ready to play where the serious people operate.
No weird hacks, no “well it works locally.” This thing just works in forward deployed environments. Airgapped? No problem. Disconnected ops center in some desert? Mage still runs.
Step 4: Azure, AWS, Whatever. Bring it.
Federal customers are picky. Some are all-in on Azure Gov, others are clinging to AWS GovCloud like it’s their last shred of control. Mage runs on both. Seamlessly.
- Azure Kubernetes Service → No problem.
- AWS ECS or EKS → Done.
- On-prem → That too. (But we’ll side-eye you.)
This thing isn’t just multi-cloud. It’s federal multi-cloud. That means redundant, hardened, and built for boring stuff like STIG compliance and cross-domain guardrails.
Step 5: Tradewinds, May the 4th, and It’s Gonna Be May
Of course, now that Mage is finally federalized (patent pending on that phrase), we’re submitting to DoD Tradewinds this week.
Yes, the week of May the 4th.
Because if you’re going to launch something this powerful into the defense world, you may as well do it when every defense acquisition officer is making Star Wars jokes on Slack.
Or as Justin Timberlake would say:
“It’s gonna be May.”
What’s Next?
This wasn’t just about Mage. It was about proving that commercial-grade tech can work in the most hardened, zero-trust, airgapped environments on the planet.
It’s about faster acquisition.
It’s about smarter microservice architecture.
It’s about defense agencies asking “can this scale to IL-6?” and us casually responding:
“Oh yeah, it’s already running there.”
So now, while the rest of the market is scrambling to figure out SWIFT and OTA compliance and how to get out of ATO hell, we’re already sitting comfortably — watching Mage hum along quietly, in a hardened container, sipping on a classified latte.
If you’re ready to bring your apps (and your sanity) into this new world, hit us up.
Just don’t ask if it works with CAC.
It does.