All Partners Access Network (APAN), formerly called Asia-Pacific Area Network, was a United States Department of Defense (USDOD) social networking website used for information sharing and collaboration. It operated from 1997 until its official decommissioning on October 29, 2025. APAN served as the premier collaboration enterprise for the USDOD. The APAN hosted a network of communities that supported multinational interaction and multilateral cooperation by enabling users to post multimedia and other content in blogs, wikis, forums, document libraries and media galleries. APAN was used for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, exercise planning, conferences and work groups. APAN provided non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and U.S. partner nations who did not have access to traditional, closed USDOD networks with an unclassified tool to communicate.
On September 26, 2025, the DoD CIO confirmed APAN's decommissioning, with its last operational day on October 28, 2025. After 28 years of service, the APAN website was taken offline on October 29, 2025, displaying a closure notice thanking its more than 500,000 global users and encouraging continued collaboration through Multinational Information Sharing (MNIS) successor initiatives such as the Unclassified Information Sharing Service (UISS) within the broader Mission Partner Environment (MPE) framework.
History
1997–2004 The origins of APAN can be traced back to the Virtual Information Center (VIC), which was created at Camp Smith in Honolulu, Hawaii. The VIC was established as an open source, information network designed to provide timely crisis-driven information to command decision makers. Admiral Dennis Blair, the U.S. Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Command, believed that genuine security within the region comes only when nations share dependable expectations of peaceful change, and act in concert to address common challenges. He maintained that armed forces, in conjunction with diplomatic efforts, should cooperate. It was at this same time U.S. coalition partners were seeking greater interoperability within the USPACOM Area of Responsibility (AOR). As a result, APAN was created in March 2000 to provide partner nations with a non-dot-mil (.mil), unclassified link into the Virtual Information Center to establish a way to communicate worldwide.
Blair's objective was to further the USPACOM Regional Security Cooperation objectives using collaborative, online tools. Through his direction, the Asia-Pacific Area Network was utilized to encourage cooperation on common tasks, from search and rescue to peacekeeping operations to promoting collaboration across the Pacific. The goal was to collaborate, cooperate and coordinate with USPACOM foreign partners and NGOs.
Blair, collaborating with Senator Daniel K. Inouye, received congressional funding through the Asia-Pacific Regional Initiative Fund (APRI) to further develop APAN.
As development of Asia Pacific Area Network continued, partnering nations began to increase situation awareness of events and developments within the Asia-Pacific region. APAN provided mutual benefit by providing capabilities, information and shared results instantly with USPACOM foreign counterparts and NGOs. APAN played a major role in Operation Unified Assistance to assist relief efforts to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. During this humanitarian response militaries from multiple countries worked with NGOs in Thailand. APAN was utilized to assist in cooperation of these efforts to assist more than 12,600 USDOD personnel, foreign military partners and NGOs that were involved in the relief effort.
2005–2009 As APAN grew, other HADR exercises and planning sessions utilized APAN. In 2005, the USPACOM APAN (J08) team merged to form the J7 Training Directorate.
On April 1, 2007, in a report to the U.S. Congress on the Implementation of U.S. DOD Directive 3000.05 Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations supporting U.S. National Security Presidential Directive 44 (NSPD-44), Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction and Stabilization Operations, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, "Exercises and security cooperation activities such as Balikatan and Cobra Gold, support to the Global Peace Operations Initiative, bilateral activities with regional allies, and cooperative planning through U.S. Pacific Command's 33-nation Multi-national Planning and Augmentation Team are further strengthening the relationships essential to stability operations. The value of these relationships and capabilities was demonstrated in tsunami, earthquake, and landslide relief operations, as well as in supporting activities for Operation Enduring Freedom – Philippines. To improve regional stability operations coordination and interoperability, U.S. Pacific Command sponsors the Asia Pacific Area Network (APAN), an unclassified internet-based collaboration portal for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. APAN supports U.S. Pacific Command's theater strategy and improves coordination among government agencies and international organizations. U.S. Pacific Command will continue to expand its interagency and multi-national approach to stability operations through exercises, workshops, and expanded initiatives."
In 2009, APAN was chosen by the Oversight Executive Board as the platform for the Transnational Information Sharing and Collaboration (TISC) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD). Once this occurred, APAN was being utilized by individuals outside of the USPACOM AOR and changed its name to All Partners Access network.
2010–2015 After several years of developing APAN, in January 2010, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) set up an APAN Community to assist more than 500 organizations looking to coordinate efforts for the 2010 Haiti earthquake within USSOUTHCOM. APAN was utilized to support Operation Unified Response to coordinate NGOs, foreign governments. private individuals and humanitarian assistance. Users utilized APAN to share situation reports, imagery and other crucial statistics with the humanitarian aid community. Over 1,400 users, including the Red Cross and smaller relief organizations communicated with one another using APAN. to relieve the suffering in Haiti. In an interview conducted with the CTO of DISA by Defense Systems, Dave Mihelcic, states "One of the things we learned...is that you can't always understand who your partners are. One night I was on APAN, watching Haiti relief being coordinated by a U.S. Southern Command operator, and someone popped in and said, 'I'm the owner of a construction business in Biloxi [Miss.] and I have four qualified bulldozer operators, and if you can arrange transportation to Haiti, they can participate in the relief.' And they were able to coordinate that."
In 2011, the US DOD announced a new Unclassified Information Sharing Service (UISS) as an enterprise service centrally funded for all Combatant Commands (COCOMs) to use with mission partners in their respective AORs.
2019 On February 12, 2019, The Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense released a directive-type memorandum for Mission Partner Environments (MPE). Through the Mission Partner Environments program, the US Air Force "assumes responsibility for modernization, management, integration, and consolidation of All Partners Access Network."
Technology APAN users can select between two platforms based on their community need: Telligent or SharePoint. Added to APAN in 2010, Telligent provided APAN users a more social opportunity and uses blogs, wikis, forums and media galleries. In 2013, APAN added SharePoint as a secondary platform for those users who were looking for more structured content using document libraries and lists.
Additional features
Chat APAN added chat services to support HADR events and exercises for users to collaborate in real-time from a browser in 2014.
Conferencing APAN added Adobe Connect to facilitate real-time audio and video conferencing to assist with online training and learning in 2000.
Maps and GIS In 2012, APAN adds Mapping and GIS capabilities to support collaboration. Mapping capabilities are enhanced on October 31, 2015.
Mobile On October 31, 2015, APAN upgrades Telligent platform to support responsive design.
Translation In 2014, APAN enhances translation tools across APAN to be able to communicate with foreign partners using multiple languages.
Technology releases Version Date Update APAN 1.0 1999 HTML Code APAN 2.0 2001 Active Server Pages (ASP) APAN 3.0 2003 Lotus Quick Place APAN 4.0 2004 Dot Net Nuke APAN 5.1 2007 Windows Share Point Services APAN 5.2 2009 Telligent Community Server added APAN 5.3 2010 Telligent Web update APAN 6.0 2011 Telligent Web update APAN 6.5 2012 Enterprise SharePoint 2010 added APAN 7.0 2014 Telligent 7.0 APAN 8.0 2015 Telligent 8.5 APAN 9.0 2017 Telligent 9.2 APAN 12.0 2025 Verint Community 12.1.8
Impact
Global communication and collaboration impacts
Cobra Gold An Asia-Pacific military exercise held annually in Thailand, utilized APAN for emergency notifications during the 2008 Cobra Gold exercise. Partnering with AtHoc IWSAlerts, through USPACOM, the U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) led operators from the Joint Task Force protection teams throughout Thailand using the emergency alerts for critical communication needs during practice disaster relief efforts. Cobra Gold improved coordinated efforts to natural disaster response including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the Typhoon Haiyan response.
RONNA Originally developed on Harmonie Web, RONNA was moved to APAN in 2011. RONNA provided information sharing between partners working to build a peaceful and democratic state in Afghanistan. RONNA's purpose was to fill information gaps that existed between government and NGOs and other Afghan partners. "Over thirty communities from organizations including ISAF, USAID, the U.S. Treasury and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan" shared information within the RONNA community of interest.
Endeavor Exercises
APAN has supported the USDOD's program of "Endeavor" exercises: Pacific Endeavor, Africa Endeavor, and Combined Endeavor. These exercises have brought together military representatives from various nations in a region to practice communications in crisis scenarios. Hundreds of communications officers and technicians from around the globe have gathered annually for these events to practice communicating before a crisis strikes and to build relationships beyond cultural boundaries.
Combined Endeavor Combined Endeavor, the largest command, control, communications and computer interoperability event in the world, used APAN to provide online collaboration for exercise planning and equipment management.
Africa Endeavor In 2010, for the first time ever, a direct communications link was established between the African Union and units in the field as part of the annual Africa Endeavor 2010 Exercise by using APAN, to allow international military and NGO groups to work together in a neutral online environment. Approximately 40 countries participate in bilingual crisis response exercises using English and French with approximately 1,000 members of the APAN community sharing pictures and files using translation functions that have supplemented the use of interpreters, which has expanded participants' ability to overcome language barriers.
Pacific Endeavor – Multinational Communications Interoperability Program (MCIP)