The United States Marine Corps (USMC) and the Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic (NIWC-LANT) are critical components of the Department of Defense (DoD) tasked with enhancing security, operational readiness, and global mission success. The USMC, a premier branch of the U.S. military, is responsible for amphibious and expeditionary warfare and requires advanced infrastructure to support personnel across global installations. NIWC-LANT is vital in delivering cutting-edge information warfare solutions to enhance data integrity, cyber resilience, and technological superiority.

The USMC and NIWC-LANT were tasked with addressing a critical and complex challenge: replace aging barracks access control systems at MCAS Beaufort and develop a scalable, cloud-native model that could be expanded across all USMC barracks worldwide. The objective extended beyond a local upgrade and demanded a cloud-hosted wireless locking solution that fully integrated with the Common Access Card (CAC) system and adhered to the DoD’s stringent Risk Management Framework (RMF) cybersecurity standards. The solution also needed to minimize onsite hardware, support global deployment, and integrate natively with the Marine Corps Enterprise Network (MCEN) and other secure DoD systems. To further complicate the effort, the project required a phased implementation to avoid disrupting daily operations at an active installation. TIAG needed to ensure close collaboration with key stakeholders – including the MCAS Housing Office, Network Battalion, Security Control Assessor (SCA), and Authorizing Official (AO) to drive alignment, streamline approvals, and facilitate rapid deployment at the test site, with an eye toward future enterprise-wide adoption.

The solution’s heart is a fully cloud-native platform built on LenelS2 OnGuard, integrated with ASSA ABLOY Aperio IN100 wireless locks, and hosted within IL-4 AWS GovCloud. From the outset, the project’s intent was to establish a repeatable, mission-ready access control framework that could be deployed to every USMC barracks installation worldwide. To achieve this, TIAG deployed the system at Building 1122 at MCAS Beaufort, one of the most extensive Marine Corps barracks facilities. TIAG began with a fully validated prototype hosted in a hardened AWS IL-2 environment, successfully demonstrating critical system capabilities – including wireless lock performance, CAC authentication, and cloud-hosted management – during a live test at NIWC-LANT’s USMC Lab. Following prototype approval, TIAG launched the Pilot at Beaufort, conducting a detailed site survey to assess technical and environmental conditions, which informed a phased rollout strategy to avoid operational disruptions. The deployment involved the creation of three integrated environments: a local physical node for redundancy, a cloud-based test/development environment to validate configurations, and a production environment hosted in IL-4 AWS GovCloud, fully integrated with MCEN. Deployment progressed in two phases. TIAG installed and configured nine wireless-lock-enabled doors on the second floor of Building 1122, successfully performed System Operability Verification Tests (SOVT) using test CACs, and secured an Interim Authority to Test (IATT) for the system’s connection to Marine Corps networks. The system was then expanded to the remaining 140 doors across the facility, followed by rigorous functional, cybersecurity, and user acceptance testing (UAT) to validate full production readiness.

TIAG developed the U.S. Marine Corps’ first-ever cloud-hosted Electronic Security System (ESS) – not only modernizing access control at MCAS Beaufort, but also demonstrating a proven model capable of supporting barracks security modernization efforts across all USMC installations globally. Designed for maximum scalability, this system delivers centralized, enterprise-level management with seamless CAC and mobile credential integration, supporting over 60,000 locks across Marine Corps barracks globally. By eliminating the need for localized server infrastructure at each site, TIAG’s design drastically reduced hardware costs, streamlined maintenance, and strengthened overall security posture.