MIT DISA Who's Who and FCSA GSA/DISA Issue 0909

The Voice of Military Communications and Computing T EN L EM IA PL EC UP SP T S U -O LL PU

Information Engineer Richard Williams Principal Director GIG Enterprise Services Engineering DISA

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C4ISR October 2009 Volume 13, Issue 9

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Future COMSATCOM Services Acquisition ✯ Robert Lentz ✯ NCOIC FCS Network Tests

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MILITARY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

OCTOBER 2009 VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 9

FEATURES

COVER / Q&A COMSATCOM Alliance

The Defense Information Systems Agency and General Services Administration are moving rapidly ahead on implementing the Future COMSATCOM Services Acquisition program. By Harrison Donnelly

FCSA: The Industry View

Following the announcement that DISA and GSA would establish the FCSA program, Military Information Technology asked a number of satellite communications companies for their perspectives on the future of military and other government SATCOM procurement.

Army Tests the “Network Piece”

The Army achieved a major milestone in its future networking capabilities late this summer with the start of limited user testing of the Early-Infantry Brigade Combat Team initial capabilities package by elements of the Army Evaluation Task Force. By Scott R. Gourley

21 Richard Williams Principal Director Global Information Grid Enterprise Services Engineering DISA

DEPARTMENTS 2 Editor’s Perspective 4 Program Notes/People 16 JTRS Update 18 Data Bytes

Into the Realm of Cyber-Assurance Shortly before leaving office, the outgoing chief of DoD information security reflected on his tenure and called for a new path focused on automated systems. By Robert Lentz

34 COTSacopia 35 Calendar, Directory

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW DISA Ties Strengthen Net-Centric Strategy The relationship between the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium and DISA has flourished and brought important benefits to both organizations.

36 Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch President Inmarsat Government Services

MILITARY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 13, ISSUE 9

OCTOBER 2009

The Voice of Military Communications and Computing EDITORIAL Managing Editor Harrison Donnelly harrisond@kmimediagroup.com Copy Editor Regina Kerrigan reginak@kmimediagroup.com Correspondents Adam Baddeley • Peter Buxbaum • Scott Gourley Karen D. Schwartz • Karen E. Thuermer

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The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has achieved an important advance in its cloud computing initiative, with the release in early October of the next version of its Rapid Access Computing Environment (RACE). Launched in October 2008, RACE initially allowed for the rapid delivery of test and development environments. The new release gives Department of Defense users the ability to self-service provision operating environments within the highly secured Defense Enterprise Computing Center’s production environment. With its rapidly accessible and scalable computing infrastructure, RACE uses virtualization and the nearly unlimited capability of cloud computing to offer DoD customers platform/infrastructure as a service in test and production environments, the first of its kind for DoD. “This is all about our customers,” said Henry J. Sienkiewicz, technical program director, DISA Computing Services. “RACE is a first for DoD—our users can now customize, purchase and receive their test and development computing platform within 24 hours, and the production environments within 72 hours, and that’s a must for worldwide missions with ever-changing computing requirements. “Our goal is to allow software development to securely occur within the decision-making cycle. RACE and other DISA initiatives such as Forge.mil, Global Content Delivery Services and the Net-centric Enterprise Services posture the agency to support the ever-evolving needs of the American warfighter,” Sienkiewicz said. RACE’s quick-turn computing solution provides DoD customers with highly standardized computing platforms quickly, inexpensively and securely. With RACE allowing for provisioning within the production environment, customers get self-service provisioning with streamlined accreditation. They’ll get pre-established inherited IA controls as well as the ability to promote projects and programs from test to the production environment. Harrison Donnelly SAN storage up to 1 TB per RACE server is also now available, harrisond@kmimediagroup.com with additional storage from 10 GB to 1 TB in 10 GB increments (301) 670-5700 available.

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Combat ID Counters Friendly Fire The newest version of a combat identification system has been demonstrated to Army officials at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., marking the first time the system was demonstrated with a large, crew-served weapon on a U.S. vehicle. The combat identification (CID) system, jointly developed by BAE Systems and Thales, prevents soldiers operating machine guns on armored High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles from firing on friendly forces operating in other combat vehicles. During the demonstration, the CID system correctly identified moving and stationary friendly vehicles through smoke and fog and in tree lines.

“The general officers and civilian attendees who took the time to try the CID system all responded positively to its potential for preventing fratricide,” said Sal Costa, head of identification solutions for BAE Systems. “They were uniformly impressed by its simplicity and effectiveness.” The demonstration tests consisted of a series of tactical vignettes developed to reflect potential real-life situations and how the CID system works with other technologies to reduce friendly fire events among U.S. and coalition forces. “Our team’s innovative combat ID systems continue to show their potential to deliver a capability to the warfighter that improves

combat effectiveness while minimizing the risk of friendly casualties,” said Merry Michaux, director of Thales’ Communications, Navigation, and Identification business. The CID system consists of transponders that are mounted on vehicles and direct-fire weapon interrogators to help gunners determine if targets are friendly. The demonstration unit included a palm switch used to conduct the interrogation, a visual warning device mounted near the gun, and headphones for audible warnings that allow the gunner to see and hear the results without having to take his eyes off the target.

p eop le Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Navy Vice Admiral David J. Dorsett has been nominated for reappointment to the grade of vice admiral, and assignment as deputy chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance, N2/N6, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations/ Director of Naval Intelligence. Dorsett is currently serving as director for Intelligence, N2, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

Christine Condon has been assigned as principal director to the deputy assistant secretary of defense (resources)/director, congressional review and analysis, Office of

4 | MIT 13.9

the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Networks and Information Integration). Condon previously served as the director, congressional review and analysis, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Networks and Information Integration).

Patrick J. Allison

Thales Communications has appointed Patrick J. Allison to the position

of business development manager for the Marine Corps and Navy. His primary focus is developing and promoting engineering programs for the company’s tactical ground communications products and developing Thales derivatives that directly impact the communications capabilities of the Marine Corps and Navy.

Apptis, a provider of essential IT and communications services to key defense and civilian agencies, has appointed Skip Nowland as chief operating officer. Nowland previously served successfully as the company’s president and GM for its defense

and national security sector.

ManTech International Corp. from Northrop Grumman TASC, where he was the vice president, corporate officer and executive director of the Intelligence Operating Unit. In addition, Terry Ryan has

L. William Varner

ManTech International has named L. William Varner president of its Mission, Cyber & Technology Solutions Group, which is being created through a combination of the company’s Information Systems & Technology, and Security & Mission Assurance Groups. Varner is joining

Terry Ryan

been named president of ManTech’s Systems Engineering & Advanced Technology Group.

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COMSATCOM Alliance

AGENCIES UNIFY BUYING POWER AND LEVERAGE IN THE MARKETPLACE TO GET NEWER, MORE ADVANCED SATELLITE TECHNOLOGIES INTO THE FIELD FASTER. BY HARRISON DONNELLY MIT EDITOR HARRISOND@KMIMEDIAGROUP.COM

Even as they continue to seek user and mentoring and engineering oversight for industry input on their proposed new comother federal users. mercial satellite services acquisition vehicle, “We’ll help each other out as time goes by, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) when either of us is overwhelmed,” he said. and General Services Administration (GSA) “We’re trying to make this so that as new serare moving rapidly ahead on implementing vices become available, we can leverage them the Future COMSATCOM Services Acquisiquickly and economically and get them out tion (FCSA) program. there to manage our worldwide missions.” The first formal definitions For Kevin Gallo, GSA and requirements of the iniprogram manager, the SATtiative, which is expected to COM initiative is important acquire up to $5 billion in satnot only for the critical serellite communications capacvices it will provide for warfity and services over a decade, ighters, first responders and are scheduled for release in other government users, but draft form before the end of also for the agency partnerthe year, and designers hope to ship it represents. have the new system in place “It’s a great example of by fiscal year 2011. different government agenBruce T. Bennett Unveiled to industry cies working together to and the press this summer, operate efficiently,” said bruce.bennett@disa.mil FCSA will replace three existGallo. “We’re working side ing DISA and GSA programs by side with DISA to pool our with buying vehicles available SATCOM acquisition experto both military and other tise, avoiding the cost of pargovernment users. The three allel acquisition efforts. We’re components of FCSA will be working in the same office, dedicated transponder capacand have briefed industry ity; subscription services; and jointly, and we’re planning end-to-end solutions. (See for the partnership to conMIT, August 2009, page 4.) tinue on through acquisition Given the vastly increased and then into operations.” use of commercial satellite Kevin Gallo UNIFYING FORCES resources by the military in recent years, the DISA/GSA kevin.gallo@gsa.gov In addition to the benefits alliance is vital to continued for government users, Bennett suggested, effective support for warfighters, according to FCSA will assist industry participants as well. Bruce T. Bennett, DISA’s director of satellite “One of the things that we were continually communications, teleport and services. being questioned about by contractors and “It became apparent to us that we could Congress was the myriad different processes not do this alone. So we have decided to partthat vendors had to go through in order to ner with GSA to provide one vehicle for all of be able to sell their services to DoD or other DoD and the federal government, to unify our federal agencies. By unifying our forces, there buying power and our leverage in the marketwill be one process and one methodology, so place to get newer, more advanced technolowe’re hoping it will eliminate a significant gies into the field faster,” Bennett said, noting amount of cost and confusion that we were that DISA will continue to oversee and assist burdening our commercial brethren with.” all the DoD users, while GSA will provide 6 | MIT 13.9

The new vehicles will build on the agencies’ experiences with existing commercial satellite programs, notably DISA’s Defense Information Systems Network Satellite Transmission Services-Global (DSTS-G), which has been in place since 2001. Since then, the dramatic growth in military use of commercial satellites has reshaped the marketplace, Bennett observed. “Originally, it was a small business set-aside for three small vendors to help us navigate the commercial market space. We’ve now gotten smarter, and industry has gotten smarter, so we’ve taken some of the good ideas out of the original DISA and GSA contracts, did an exhaustive conversation with industry, and have identified three unique segments out there. We’re attacking each individually to maximize their potential for DoD and the federal government. “There wasn’t anything we didn’t like about the current process, but it was put in place years ago. What we’ve learned and gotten better at, we have rolled into this contract to make it open to any vendor out there to be able to provide their services to DoD and the federal government,” he added. While demand may level out in the future, technological change will continue to require a flexible approach, Bennett said. “I don’t see the kind of growth in the future that we’ve had in the last 10 years, but I don’t see it diminishing either. As we start moving to a network-centric environment, the amount of information is causing our warfighters to demand more and more bandwidth in order to do their mission effectively. Unfortunately, a lot of the places we deploy to don’t have viable terrestrial infrastructures, which requires them to get their connectivity through satellites. That demand will continue to stay high, but I don’t see it growing at quite the same rate that it is today. “The other big thing is the amount of new technology and services that they are bringing to the table, which allows us a lot more flexibility to meet customer requirements anywhere in the world. We took a look at past www.MIT-kmi.com

and future information needs and talked to almost everyone in the industry to get an idea of where they are heading and what kinds of services they expect to bring out in the foreseeable future, and at how we can best apply that to the unfulfilled requirements that we have now in DoD. We spent a lot of time with industry people, working and talking with them, picking their brains and letting them know what our needs were and trying to match them up,” Bennett recalled.

EASY AND ECONOMICAL By aggregating demand from a wide range of government agencies, FCSA is expected to produce significant economies of scale and cost savings, while also simplifying administration for both users and suppliers. “It should be easier for users to order services and identify how to fill requirements,” said Bennett. “It should also be more economical for the user, and allow a lot more flexibility and portability of bandwidth.” The end of the DSTS-G program will change the status of the three prime contractors—Artel, DRS Technologies and CapRock Government Solutions—which will no longer be in charge of integrating and reselling satellite products and services from other companies. But Bennett predicted the companies would respond to the new environment. “FCSA has room for everyone,” he said. “It shouldn’t drastically affect the three companies in the current program. They can bid and be members on the contracts. But what it does do is cut some of the middlemen out,

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especially from the transponded services. It gives us some flexibility and enables more than just three companies to help us out in developing our future capabilities. “Everyone can play, and there’s room for all. All this does is to eliminate the artificial barriers we put up in the early part of this decade,” Bennett said. Another advantage is that industry will be able to continually offer new competition and services, according to Charles F. Edwards, DISA deputy program manager, SATCOM. “There are some new or prospective startups in the commercial satellite industry, and if they develop their business offerings after these awards, including transponded capacity or subscription services, they will be able to come forward as a supplier. In these two service areas, we’re going to have continuous competition, which is of value both to the government and industry.” Security could also be an area of mutual advantage, backers say. “DoD has always been out ahead on satellites, especially on information security, that our commercial brethren haven’t paid a lot of attention to. But they’re beginning to, because the kinds of information security requirements DoD has also apply to the banking and health communities, for example. So they’re beginning to offer services that are a lot closer to the native needs of DoD, and we’re encouraging that kind of growth so that we can leverage from them without having to develop specialized services,” Bennett said. “We’re also following closely on their next generation satellites,” he said. “Five years

ago, you might not have imagined putting a dish at your house and getting Internet to your home through a satellite. But you can get that today. What I tell people is that what they saw in the early 1990s with the growth of the computer industry, you’re seeing in this decade in the satellite community, and we’re just taking advantage of that.” Meanwhile, officials continue to work hard to communicate with industry and customers on the new program, both to get feedback and to make sure that all potential competitors understand the opportunities and how to participate. “We are still listening to industry as we move forward, and our communications are to help us get it right,” said Edwards. “We’re a buyer in a commercial market, and we want to make sure we’re asking them to supply things in the right way. We had the Industry Day this summer, and this fall we’ll have another meeting where we’ll talk about the language on transponded capacity and subscription services, and ask them to give us some feedback. We’re going to use draft documents to communicate with industry to make sure we get it right. “ “We’re really taking seriously the need to get information out to our customers and commercial partners, to make sure that we work out all the issues and lines of communications prior to the contracts being in place,” Bennett said. ✯ Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. For more information related to this subject, search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.

MIT 13.9 | 7

FCSA: The Industry View COMPANIES SEE PROMISE IN NEW APPROACH TO COMMERCIAL SATCOM ACQUISITION, BUT QUESTIONS REMAIN.

Strategy Calls for Provider Innovation ONLY COMPANIES TRULY SEASONED IN DELIVERING END-TO-END SATCOM SOLUTIONS CAN PROVIDE THE VALUE THAT DISA AND GSA ARE SEEKING FOR THEIR CLIENTS. BY TOM EATON teaton@caprock.com Although there is still much to learn about FCSA and the alliance between DISA and GSA, one thing is very clear—this is a new acquisition program for a new generation of satellite communications requirements. Today’s government customers need faster and easier access to a broader range of value-added satellite communications. When the predecessor contracts to FCSA were originally issued, the primary requirement was access to “bulk bandwidth” and components for self-managed networks. But after eight years of adapting to life in the post 9/11 era, defense and homeland security agencies have developed more sophisticated requirements. Whether it’s high capacity bandwidth for unmanned aerial systems or ultraportable microsat

COMSATCOM Equalizer MERGER GIVES SATELLITE COMMUNICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS AN OPPORTUNITY TO COMPETE ON A FAIR AND LEVEL PLAYING FIELD.

The historic alliance between GSA and DISA signifies the end of a once exclusive playing field, and creates a diverse landscape in which commercial satellite companies can be competitive. Adelaida V. Severson, president of Bushtex, a minority woman-owned small business that provides end-to-end satellite communication solutions worldwide, views this coalition as an equalizer in the commercial satellite industry, which serves to create 8 | MIT 13.9

(Editor’s Note: Following the announcement that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and General Services Administration (GSA) would establish the Future COMSATCOM Services Acquisition (FCSA) program, Military Information Technology asked a number of satellite communications companies for their perspectives on the future of military and other government SATCOM procurement. Following are their statements.)

systems for special forces, modern applications for satellite communications require more than just the “parts.” They require complete end-to-end solutions. By rolling multiple existing contracting vehicles into one program, DISA and GSA will accomplish three fundamental goals. First, they will streamline access to SATCOM products and services not just for the Department of Defense, but for all federal agencies. Second, with access to new fully managed SATCOM services, in either off-the-shelf or custom-configured form, government organizations can leverage the flexibility of commercially developed communications, and focus on their missions. Finally, FCSA will promote competition on many levels: among satellite operators and integrators for transponded bandwidth; among satellite service companies for subscription services; and among managed service providers for end-to-end custom networks. It is that competition that will foster more innovative and cost effective solutions in the marketplace. The key to maximizing the new FCSA acquisition strategy, and leveraging the lessons learned from the current contract vehicles, is selecting the right kind of providers. Only companies truly seasoned in delivering end-to-end SATCOM solutions can provide the value that DISA and GSA

are seeking for their clients. FCSA’s longterm success will require focusing on those contractors with true in-house capabilities. Innovation requires real investment in the customer’s mission, not merely “just in time” procurement facilitation. As a result, there will be little place in FCSA for “middle man” brokers who do not invest in, own and operate network infrastructure and assets. As a prime contractor on all three current contract vehicles (DSTS-G, INMARSAT and SATCOM-II), CapRock has become adept at creating innovative and best value solutions to meet the unique challenges of our military, intelligence and government customers. In doing so, we’ve undergone an extensive transformation. Rather than requesting that our customers sign longterm or multi-year leases that don’t fit their requirements or funding profile, we have changed to better fit their needs. CapRock invests in pre-positioning bandwidth and infrastructure in current and future hot spots to make sure we can meet the military’s requirements when and where needed. In short, we change, so our clients don’t have to. Ultimately it is that kind of adaptability that government agencies of all types should expect from FCSA and its supporting service providers. Tom Eaton is president of CapRock Government Solutions.

improved relations with the military entigroundbreaking role in the data transmisties. “The merging of GSA and DISA opens sion from an airplane to various federal up the marketplace and offers agencies on behalf of the Coast increased opportunities for innovaGuard—the first-ever UAV flight tive technology and partnerships,” transmission in history. Severson said. “This extraordinary “The relationship between merger gives satellite communicathe commercial satellite industry tion service providers an opportuand the military will continue nity to compete on a fair and level to evolve with the state of the playing field, while opening up the economy,” noted Severson. “I see Adelaida V. Severson doors for us to engage in a varithe merging of GSA and DISA ety of government and military adelaida@bushtex.com as a win-win for both sides. As contracts.” we move toward working more with governSeverson speaks from experience on ment entities, we are proud to excel outside her work with a number of government of the beltway in an extremely competitive contracts, including facilitating Bushtex’s industry.” www.MIT-kmi.com

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The FCSA Vision LEVERAGING COMMERCIAL SOLUTIONS TO MEET DOD’S MISSION REQUIREMENTS. BY RICK LOBER rick.lober@hughes.com The FCSA is an initiative between DISA and GSA to provide commercially available satellite services and end-to-end solutions to the government. It enables the military and civilian agencies to benefit from using commercial solutions while leveraging the power of IDIQ contracting. For the Department of Defense, FCSA’s importance cannot be overstated. It is a potential roadmap that can enable the military to procure proven commercial products and solutions, meeting missioncritical requirements at the best price and schedule available. As DISA and GSA seek input on the strategy, there are some essential points to consider: •

Solving the bandwidth shortage. Increased numbers of unmanned systems continue to absorb bandwidth needed by the warfighter for tactical communications. Exponential growth of these systems and the cancellation of the Transformational Satellite Communication System (TSAT) will create a significant bandwidth shortage—even when accounting for WGS and AEHF rollouts and enhancements. The commercial satellite industry has solutions available to meet FCSA’s needs

Open Dialogue Needed WHILE FCSA LOOKS LIKE A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, IT WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY SOLVE THE INVESTMENT PROBLEM. BY GENERAL ROBERT “TIP” OSTERTHALER (RET.) Over the past several years, the U.S. government and the commercial space industry have engaged in a new and more productive dialogue, but it is too soon to tell whether or not the discussion will lead to a different relationship for the 10 | MIT 13.9

•

tomorrow, as well as existing bandwidth efficient solutions for the military today. For example, Hughes SPACEWAY 3 satellite—the world’s first commercial satellite with on-board IP-packet switching and available for government use—has 10 Gbps capacity, as opposed to the 1 Gbps capacity typical of conventional bent-pipe satellites. To meet the future bandwidth needs of its customers, Hughes is currently designing Jupiter, a next-generation satellite with 100+ Gbps of capacity, scheduled for launch in 2012. The FCSA program could allow for government lease of shared bandwidth, full transponders or entire satellites such as these, providing needed capacity more quickly than via time-consuming DoD acquisitions. Managing DoD Networks. As advanced networks evolve, network management will become a growing need within DoD, and much can be learned from the commercial industry. Hughes is the largest provider of broadband satellite solutions in the world, having shipped almost 2 million systems to customers in over 100 countries, and manages more than 700,000 broadband sites in operation throughout North America from its network operations center in Maryland. The FCSA program could be structured to allow DoD to learn from and utilize that kind of commercial expertise in managed network services developed over the

long term. What is clear is that government users have an appetite for satellite bandwidth that far exceeds the capacity of government-owned systems, and few people think that will change any time soon. This reality would seem to make it imperative that the government find ways to ensure that commercial infrastructure will be available when and where needed. From the point of view of the commercial satellite operators, the government is a highly desirable customer: They have growing demand; they have defined requirements and processes; and they pay their bills on time. So if the government needs industry to step up and industry

•

last 20 years, in what will undoubtedly be one of the major challenges for upcoming government communications programs. Leveraging Standards-Based Solutions. Commercial solutions used in-theater have the advantages of rapid deployment and proven capabilities, but can present significant logistical support penalties. These can be avoided by employing industry standard, open waveform solutions such as the global IP over Satellite (IPoS) air interface, developed by Hughes and approved by ETSI, TIA and ITU. As a case in point, DoD can today source IPoScompliant, mesh capable, communications-on-the-move solutions with FIPS-140-2 enhanced security that yield the warfighter the best of both worlds—high performance, bandwidth efficient technology based on industry standards, fully supportable from an acquisition and logistics perspective.

In summary, the FCSA vision should embrace the objectives of enhancing today’s military communications capabilities by utilizing commercially proven, standards-based solutions, while at the same time streamlining the acquisition process to expedite their rapid deployment now and development of next generation versions in the near future. Rick Lober joined Hughes in late 2008 as the vice president and general manager of the Defense and Intelligence Systems Division.

wants to serve government, why is it so hard to come up with a mutually satisfactory way to get commercial capacity into the hands of government end-users? One of the major challenges is to find ways to bridge the gaps between the business models of the buyers and sellers. While the satellite operators are eager to sell to the federal government, they have more commercial customers than government customers. They also have substantial capital tied up in their satellite assets, and they have a responsibility to their investors to get the best yield they can from those assets. Satellite operators are very rational and very predictable, www.MIT-kmi.com

investing in capabilities of interest to the government when they have an expectation that their investments will generate reasonable returns. On the other hand, government buyers and end-users operate within an acquisition environment that features highly unpredictable overall demand, uncertainty as to the ability of governmentowned systems to satisfy requirements, and one-year budget cycles. When it takes two to three years to put a commercial communications satellite in orbit, and the government cannot predict demand or know how much money it will have to buy commercial bandwidth beyond the current year and perhaps one more, it is easy to see why industry and government seem to have the same conversations year after year.

Acquisition Centerpiece IT IS IN EVERYONE’S BEST INTEREST TO PARTICIPATE TOGETHER TO CREATE A SIMPLE, QUICK, EFFECTIVE AND FAIR APPROACH TO GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT OF COMMERCIAL

SATCOM. BY JOSEPH BRAVMAN jbravman@omni-sat.com Commercial SATCOM has established itself as a significant and permanent element in meeting part of the government’s SATCOM solution set. It has progressed from predominantly standard C-, Ku- and L-band offerings to also include uniquely government capabilities such as UHF and X-band. Furthermore, the acceleration of implementation techniques like hosted payloads has opened up even greater leverage. Such payloads can add new transponders or advanced features like IP routers in space and distributed architectures, and at the same time cut cost and take years off of the time to orbit. There is hardly a satellite conference that does not have a panel focused on evolving ways in which the government can be a better customer and industry can be a better supplier. With the demise of large programs such as TSAT, everyone is looking to find ways to close that gap. A large and growing portion of commercial acquisition comes through DISA www.MIT-kmi.com

The FCSA might well be a very effective approach to government purchasing of commercial satellite capacity, but the details within the three service areas are not yet fully developed. Furthermore, it is not yet clear how much flexibility government end-users will have as they purchase capacity and services through the Schedule 70 and ID/IQ vehicles within FCSA. As these details are filled in over the coming months, it will be important to keep in mind the need to connect the government and commercial business models. From the commercial satellite operator perspective, the ability to have a direct relationship with government end-users provides an opportunity for industry to better understand future requirement and to use that knowledge to ensure the

capacity will be available when and where needed. That will only happen, though, if the government keeps in mind that industry will invest only where it has manageable risks and the expectation of reasonable returns. While FCSA looks like a step in the right direction, it will not automatically solve the investment problem. For that, the open dialogue that began several years ago will need to be continued and expanded to the point where industry is directly involved in the government communications infrastructure planning process.

and GSA, each serving as aggregation points where government customers can shop. The present acquisition structure, with vehicles like DISA’s Defense Information Systems Network Satellite Transmission Services-Global (DSTS-G), often are not a quick path to low prices or innovation, and they are often criticized by DoD users, the Government Accountability Office, satellite operators, and small-to-medium sizes companies for various and differing shortcomings. The government is trying to overcome the rigidity in this acquisition structure with FCSA as a new initiative, and allow satellite operators, equipment and service suppliers, and small and large company integrators to each fairly compete under IT Schedule 70 or IDIQ vehicles. An estimated $5 billion will be purchased over the next 10 years, and it is in everyone’s best interest to participate together to create a simple, quick, effective, and fair acquisition approach. After the formal announcement, DISA and GSA are planning on releasing the FCSA drafts to industry in the first half of 2010. The solicitation will be divided among three classes of capabilities: transponded capacity; “plug in” subscription services (FSS and MSS); and custom endto-end solutions. There is also an opportunity in the need to bridge between things that are truly commercial, but useful to the government, and those that are truly governmental and unique. It is

through enlarging this space that leverage increases. Below are a few of these emerging technologies, many of which should find a significant role in future commercial acquisitions:

Air Force General Robert “Tip” Osterthaler (Ret.) is president and chief executive officer of AMERICOM Government Services.

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Ultra-wideband satellite systems at Ka-band and above, and including optical payloads Fast flow routers and IP switching True COTM and affordable mobile phased array antennas Clusters of distributed and hybrid systems Higher order modulation, advanced signal processing, and highly flexible SDR terminals More use of MEO and elliptical orbits Next generation LEO systems.

I hope that in the future we will find many of these items as commercial component in FCSA offerings, and that there will be a healthy interplay between small business/SDB, large business, integrators, service providers, satellite and network operators, and equipment manufacturers. FCSA will not be the one and only place to shop, but it should become a centerpiece in the acquisition of commercial capabilities. Joseph Bravman is currently engaged in a number of satellite and communications projects as president and founder of Omnisat. MIT 13.9 | 11

Ready for the RACE? DISA HAS CREATED A GAME-CHANGER WITH RAPID ACCESS TO THE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT, AND IT’S TIME FOR THE SATCOM INDUSTRY TO MEET THE CHALLENGE. BY PETER JONES peter.jones@segoviaip.com One of the most exciting developments at DISA in the last year or so has been the Rapid Access to the Computing Environment (RACE) program. This program is said to have been inspired by Internet Web hosting companies such as Godaddy.com, which have developed the capability to provision a virtual computing environment quickly and painlessly in minutes, not weeks. Basically, if you want to host a Website, provide a credit card number to the hosting company and it can quickly—without human intervention—provision your domain, create DNS records, build a virtual environment (Windows or Linux), and provision your storage and Internet connectivity. In under an hour, you have a qualified domain, with a virtualized computing environment, ready to go. Just upload your content and you’re online. And so it is with RACE. While the time-toprovision is a little longer, DISA is able to provision .mil and .gov domains rapidly, at low cost, based on immediate customer needs. What a concept: You need it, you provide a few pieces of data, and the domain is created for you—now.

FCSA Offers Government Value GIVEN THE FUTURE RELIANCE ON COMMERCIAL SATELLITE NETWORKS, IT IS VITAL THAT DOD PUT IN PLACE NOT JUST A CONTRACTING VEHICLE, BUT A TRULY INNOVATIVE SOLUTION.

BY SKOT BUTLER skot.butler@intelsatgeneral.com DISA and GSA announced recently that they would team up to create a new contract vehicle for the provision of commercial satellite services to the U.S. government. This 12 | MIT 13.9

Alfred Rivera and his folks at the DISA Computing Services Directorate should be commended. Not only because RACE is a world-shaking idea, but also because so many other services need to meet the same challenge for speed, responsiveness and customer service. In truth, the Computing Services’ innovation is not the first of this kind of thinking. As early as 2002, DISA and the predecessor office to ASD (NII) made a major investment in the terrestrial DISN’s ability to provision huge amounts of bandwidth, quickly, through the GIG Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE) program. GIG-BE became the poster child for doing things right: fast response, forward thinking and streamlining DoD’s telecommunications processes. If GIG-BE was the first step, and RACE was the second, what’s next? Unfortunately, some in the telecommunications community are not that enlightened. The commercial SATCOM procurement system is an egregious example. We have SATCOM requirements documents, and we require reams of justification, 1960sera requests for service, SATCOM databases, TSRs, TSOs, JCS “approvals,” and other bureaucratic maneuvers. We limit access to satellite services based on perceived “need.” The underlying assumption is that SATCOM is a precious resource, one that needs to be parceled out like Scrooge handing out small coins on Christmas Eve. Reality is just the opposite. With the advent of Ka- and commercial X-band, we no longer have the bandwidth shortage that hobbled DoD in decades past. Yes, not every-

thing can talk to everybody, but the market is providing more bandwidth, in more technically efficient ways, in more places, than ever before. This is what Rivera and his team are providing: efficient and timely access to resources. Instead of a bureaucracy-bound process, based on equipment acquisition and procurement timelines, which gets service in months, DISA instead provides pre-positioned networks, platforms, and commercial best-practices business practices—and can literally provision service in hours. There is another term for this: managed services. To some, managed services is a dirty word. It shouldn’t be. Managed services means the user doesn’t have to buy the hardware and software; the user just buys the service. For those who want to specify every aspect of the solution, this can be a hard sell. Managed services don’t fit well into the “statement of work/section L/section M” mindset. But they do fit well into the mindset of “statement of objectives” and “quality surveillance” plans. We need the folks who are watching DoD telecommunications to pay attention to what DISA’s Computing Services Directorate is doing with RACE. Rivera has made provisioning computing services quick and easy. There is no reason that SATCOM can’t be just as simple, and just as responsive to the warfighter.

new vehicle, FCSA, will have three service areas: transponded capacity; subscription services; and end-to-end solutions. Under the current plan, GSA will administer the contract vehicles, but DISA will maintain ordering authority for all DoD orders. Intelsat General welcomes this new contract vehicle and the opportunity to provide our services directly to the user community. We believe that military reliance on commercial capacity will continue in a significant way into the future, and we support a structured balance of MILSATCOM and COMSATCOM. DoD’s broad objective of providing bandwidth and content to the individual soldier and Marine, coupled with new bandwidthintensive technologies such as UAVs, tells us that the government will never

fully satisfy its own needs using national systems. We believe that a direct contractual relationship between the government and the satellite operators will have a positive impact on the DISA and GSA missions, and by extension the warfighters and other government users they serve. Some specific areas where the government would benefit:

Peter Jones is senior director of business development at Segovia Global IP Solutions.

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The government would gain an opportunity to provide direct input into the design of future satellites and coverage. Our customers will get the benefit of a secure Web portal that allows them to monitor their service end to end, including bandwidth utilization over www.MIT-kmi.com

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time and segment-by-segment link availability. Our Intelsat General Secure Operations Center offers government customers the ability to securely leverage Intelsat’s tools, talent and infrastructure for everything from EMI/RFI and geo-location to troubleshooting of remote equipment.

Meeting Military Bandwidth Demands CAN DOD AND THE COMMERCIAL SATCOM INDUSTRY TOGETHER TRANSFORM POLICY TO SUPPORT MILITARY OPERATIONS?

BY LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILLIAM J. DONAHUE (RET.) Current Department of Defense contracting processes have been crafted to acquire commercial SATCOM services by responding to wellspecified needs, properly executed through a detailed workflow process, and supported with a funding document to pay the bill. These methodical procedures do not generate the best value solution. The Department of Defense, for the most part, does not budget for these services and buys them on spot markets, where demand is high and competition for bandwidth goes to the highest bidders. This is akin to an individual trying to book a hotel at the last minute, in a town hosting a national sports event: You either pay a premium or you take what you can get and hope for the best. DoD also has a 10-year history of using supplemental operations and maintenance (O&M) appropriations to finance commercial SATCOM needs. Without a normal budget process that serves as a forecast to industry, there is no signal with respect to where commercial industry should channel its scarce investment resources. DoD buyers would like to treat commercial SATCOM purely as a commodity, allowing price to be the sole or key discriminator for award. Yet they also talk about the need for industry to better meet their requirements for security, assurance and availability. Two simple actions will go 14 | MIT 13.9

This being said, we do still have some questions for the government. For instance, precisely how will the government determine if a particular requirement falls into the “subscription services” or “end-to-end” category? Also, we have some concerns about the seemingly “unlimited” nature of the awards. How will DISA PMO manage potentially dozens of bids on every task order and deliver services to the warfighter in a timely fashion?

Given the future reliance on commercial satellite networks, it is vital that DoD put in place not just a contracting vehicle, but a truly innovative solution that will meet warfighter requirements of today and in the next engagement, wherever that may be.

a long way in giving DoD better value and generating a closer working relationship with commercial SATCOM industry. The first action should be a program objective memorandum and budget line for commercial SATCOM that is visible to the industry. The second action should be development of policies to address the role of commercial SATCOM industry in the national defense equation. These two actions are necessary and essential first steps toward a government and industry partnership that will meet future bandwidth needs better, faster and cheaper than we have in the past. As the government and commercial industry continue to work toward greater cooperation at this critical time in our history, DoD must recognize the vital national resource that the commercial satellite industry provides. The department should review its relatively weak current policies with respect to commercial satellite services procurement. It needs to strengthen and build on the framework whereby commercial satellites currently provide for more than 80 percent of DoD’s communications bandwidth requirements. We clearly need COMSAT acquisition solutions that will work efficiently, leverage the government’s buying power and continue to take advantage of the great strength represented by commercial bandwidth providers. Additionally, the government needs to consider and plan for emergency preparedness related to global connectivity. This should be an initiative similar to the mid1980s, when DoD led government efforts to address national security emergency preparedness issues related to domestic telephony and connectivity in the aftermath of the breakup of AT&T. In all of these cases, the commercial SATCOM industry can be an adaptable and capable partner in

addressing the government’s future communications needs and solutions. DoD should make satellite bandwidth acquisition policy focus on enabling and strengthening capabilities, all the way to the edge of the battlefield. Furthermore, DoD should transform commercial SATCOM contracting processes and workflow to efficiently support global operations. This will foster real change in the way the government views the innovation and flexibility of the commercial SATCOM industry. The future success of U.S. military operations will depend on a rich, commercial satellite communications industrial base. The government needs to refine its commercial acquisition strategies to ensure that our warfighters have all the bandwidth they need for current operations. DoD should push this bandwidth as rapidly as possible to the forward edge and not wait to receive well-defined requirements, engineered solutions and funding documents from the theater of operations. We have reached new frontiers, including putting men on the moon, by using innovation, people and technology. Solving the SATCOMS bandwidth problem should be a virtual “chip shot.” We do not want bandwidth to be a limiting factor when it is time to apply force or when it is time to operate against our enemies in hostile areas.

Skot Butler is director of strategic initiatives for Intelsat General.

During his 33-year Air Force career, Lieutenant General William J. Donahue served in a variety of communications, information, command and control positions at virtually every level in the Air Force. He has extensive background in the full range of Air Force information technology, telecommunications and space-based systems. Among a range of clients, Donahue currently supports XTAR on satellite communications matters. www.MIT-kmi.com

WIN-T is… being fielded today. a self-forming and self-healing network. providing integrated network operations. a mobile, ad-hoc network. the U.S. Army’s current and future network. For more information please call 508-880-1759.

AMF Program Links Air, Maritime Domains THE NETWORKED CAPABILITIES BEING DELIVERED ARE THE EQUIVALENT OF GIVING WARFIGHTERS THE OTHER TEAM’S PLAYBOOK BEFORE THE BIG GAME. Editor’s Note: This is another in a regular series of updates on the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), as provided by the program’s Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO).

It has always been about joint networked connectivity in the battlespace. In the air, from the seas and on the ground, across distances far and near, linking warfighters with real-time audio, video and data communications gives our troops and allies unprecedented capability and superiority in the battlespace. The networked capabilities being delivered by the Airborne, Maritime/Fixed Station (AMF) program are the equivalent of giving our warfighters the other team’s playage book before the big game. Taking advantage es of advanced, strategy-changing technologies gives us an edge in battle. One of five major programs within the JPEO JTRS, the AMF program consists of a two-channel small airborne (SA) joint tactical radio (JTR), and a four-channel maritime/fixed (M/F) JTR. Increment I of AMF-SA will support UHF SATCOM, the Mobile User Objecg tive System (MUOS), Wideband Networking W), Waveform, Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW), and Link-16. The Army’s Longbow Apache attack ill also l helicopter is the lead platform, and the radio will go into other Army aviation assets and Air Force tankers and cargo transports such as the C-130, KC-135 and KC-10. Increment 1 AMF-M/F will support the UHF SATCOM and MUOS waveforms, and be integrated into Navy ships like aircraft carriers and destroyers, as well as fixed station platforms, Air Force command and control (C2) centers, and Navy shore C2 installations. The SRW 1.0C waveform was tested in a multi-node, surrogate radio field trial this past June, and was scheduled to start porting in October. It demonstrated a high degree of confidence in the capability and how it will change the battlefield for the warfighter. During the field test, there were 5 watt handheld radios that were connected to each other within a line of sight. Then, another node was placed on the other side of the terrain, out of line of sight, that was a sufficient distance away than the range of the radio’s capability. A helicopter rose to 200 feet, and instantly there was communication. A larger network, which 16 | MIT 13.9

gave greater situational awareness, materialized in a simulated battlespace environment. Within the next few months, AMF is on track to hold a critical design review. A software/hardware demonstration based on a mission scenario environment will follow in the March/April 2010 time frame. To date date, the National Security Agency (NSA) has not identifi identified any key issues with AMF architecture, and that that’s due in large part to the partnership and cl close working relationships between the AMF program, NSA and the contractors delivering the waveforms. In summary, AMF provides a vertical extension of the joint ground domain. The ground forces, enabled by the JTRS ground mobile radios (GMR), will establish a critical network for terrestrial operational forces. All too often, the ground domain and airborne ddomain are characterized as separate layers, each having its own network that requires a strateg strategy to link the two. In reality, it is one network th b thatt iis enabled by the GMR JTRS and AMF JTRS radios. Interoperability demands a singular view of a joint network that empowers the soldier, sailor, airman and Marine regardless of the service or combat platform. For a long time, the emphasis of developing systems has been on achieving interoperability of those systems, perhaps giving the impression of cobbling together disparate independent systems into a joint enclave of interoperable tools, observed Colonel Raymond Jones, AMF program manager. A more appropriate word for today’s thinking, he suggested, might be interdependency. That reflects a more advanced interpretation that a broad community’s interests can intersect and support each other, anticipating that a military operation may grow to include different government agencies and coalitions. And that’s what AMF and JTRS deliver. “I’m on task with delivering capability. I’m a warfighter. I wear a uniform. I tell my contractors this every day: I’m not building a doorstop. I’m building a capability that needs to get to the warfighter as quickly as possible,” Jones said. ✯ www.MIT-kmi.com

reasons to believe in JTRS—now.

Harris is marking the delivery of the 100,000th Falcon III® multiband handheld radio (AN/PRC-152)—and proving the value of JTRS solutions today. UÊ Fielded by all branches of the U.S. Department of Defense UÊ Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) approved But most importantly, the AN/PRC-152 handheld radio is doing what it was designed to do: enabling our troops to communicate safely and reliably—today. Learn more about the vision of JTRS and how Harris is delivering on it today: www.jtrs.com

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Radio Technology Increases Congested Network Capacity BAE Systems has completed the first real-time mobile tests of new wireless military radio technology designed to help warfighters dispense critical communications without interruption during battle. The technology allows more traffic on more networking systems, giving users an advantage during air-to-air, air-toground and soldier-to-soldier communications. Under a $15.5 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract, the company is developing wireless radios that can untangle interfering digital communications signals. The DARPA Interface Multiple Access (DIMA) program aims to greatly increase network capacity and performance in highly congested mobile networks. The radios will allow multiple transmissions to occur simultaneously on one frequency and can support as many as five simultaneous conversations into the same time and frequency slot, even in the presence of severe near-far interference. Known as multiuser detection, BAE Systems’ real-time technology enables users to communicate simultaneously on the same channel without centralized control or infrastructure. Recent experiments validated the technology in a mobile, ad-hoc network environment and demonstrated the vehicle-mounted DIMA radio’s ability to receive up to five simultaneous transmissions from different users while traveling at 15 mph.

Mobile Technology Enables Wireless Wide Area Networks General Dynamics Itronix will offer Qualcomm’s Gobi global mobile Internet technology as a new capability for the Itronix line of rugged notebooks, tablet PCs and ultra-mobile PCs, including the vehicle-rugged GD6000 and the fully rugged line of GD8000 notebook computers. The multi-mode Gobi technology enables General Dynamics Itronix customer customers to take advantage of high-speed data access services service from 3G network carriers around the world. With Gobi’s technology in General Dynamics Itronix no notebooks, IT departments can simplify their opera operations by procuring and deploying one notebook in a wireless wide area network configuration, enabling global connectivity among multiple carriers. The em embedded technology significantly reduces the need to support multiple embedded or external cards and reduces the number of hardware assets that ne need IT management. To keep ke the technology current, curren software updates are eeasily downloaded whenever the connection manager is launched.

18 | MIT 13.9

Multiband Radio Deliveries Reach Six Figures Harris has delivered its 100,000th Falcon III AN/PRC-152(C), a multiband handheld radio that is providing improved secure real-time communication between deployed forces at all levels during combat and crisis. The software-defined AN/PRC-152(C) is the most widely deployed Joint Tactical Radio System-approved (JTRS) radio. Currently in use by all branches of the Department of Defense, many allies and federal agencies, the radio was funded by Harris and is being procured under the JTRS Enterprise Business Model. This development work has also yielded the only JTRS-approved wideband networking radio available today, the Falcon III AN/PRC-117(G). The multiband, multimission Falcon III AN/PRC-152(C) radio is available in handheld and vehicular “grab and go” configurations and provides advanced communications interoperability to U.S. and allied forces, as well as federal agencies. The radio has significantly advanced the speed and reliability of voice-and-data communications on the battlefield.

Air Force Seeks Improved Targeting and Sensor Pods The Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a $153 million contract to provide LITENING G4 targeting and sensor systems and related equipment. Under the terms of the agreement, Northrop Grumman will deliver LITENING G4 targeting and sensor pods to the Air Force, as well as kits for the Air Force Reserve Command and Air National Guard, to enable the upgrade of existing LITENING AT pods to the G4 configuration. The contract also includes the supply of additional data links for the Air National Guard and Air Force. LITENING G4 is a selfcontained, multi-sensor laser target-designating, surveillance and navigation system. The pods are also equipped with “plug and play” technology that enables them to accept a variety of data links without further modifications to the pod or aircraft. LITENING G4 capabilities include an all-digital 1K forward-looking infrared sensor and a 1K charge-coupled device TV sensor, providing improved target detection and recognition ranges; a laser target imaging program imaging system providing unprecedented target recognition in a wide variety of conditions; and a “plug and play” data link system that enables improved communications between airborne forces and the ground.

www.MIT-kmi.com

Mark Orndorff Director Program Executive Office Mission Assurance and Network Operations DISA

Cloud Computing Published by Military Information Technology

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www.xtarllc.com Commercial X-band now available through the GSA FSC Group 70 and DISA DSTS-G contracts.

WHO’S WHO IN DISA

Military Information Technology

COVER O / Q& Q&A Mark Orndorff Director Program Executive Office Mission Assurance and Network Operations DISA

Publisher’s NOTE

WHO O’S WHO O

FEATURES DISA Speeds Cloud Computing Journey

DISA officials are bringing new capabilities to the warfighter more rapidly through a combination of cloud computing and improved software development processes. By Harrison Donnelly

New Forge for Software DISA has created a collaborative development environment/ tool set designed to improve the process of writing and deploying code for military uses. By Harrison Donnelly

Spectrum Leader Builds Access Paige Atkins, director of DISA’s Defense Spectrum Organization, recently shared her thoughts on her job and the spectrum issues facing the Department of Defense.

KMI Media Group, publisher of Military Information Technology, produced the “Who’s Who in DISA” special section. The magazine, which publishes 11 times each year, reports on a wide range of C4ISR issues. The Rockville, Md., company also publishes Military Logistics Forum, Geospatial Intelligence Forum, Military Medical/CBRN Technology, Military Space and Missile Forum, Military Training Technology, Military Advanced Education and Special Operations Technology. The content of this special section was compiled by KMI editors in cooperation with DISA Public Affairs. This publication was designed by the KMI Art Department. Copyright 2009. Kerrigan Media International Inc. 15800 Crabbs Branch Way Suite 300 Rockville, MD 20855 Telephone: (301) 670-5700 Fax: (301) 670-5701 Website: www.mit-kmi.com The appearance of advertisements in “Who’s Who in DISA” does not constitute endorsement by the Defense Information Systems Agency or the United States Department of Defense. DISA does not exercise any editorial control over the advertisements in this publication.

BY HAR ARRISON ARRI R SO RI SON N DO ONNELLY NNEL NN NNEL ELLY LLY Y MITT EDIT MI DITOR D ITOR OR HARRISOND@KMIMEDIAGROUP.COM

AGGENCY ENCY YB BRINGS RINGS N NEW EW WC CAPABILITIES APABILITIIES T TO O THE E WA WARFIGHTER ARFIG GHTER THR THROUGH ROUGH A AN N IINTEGRATED NTEGRATED S STRATEGY TRATEEGY BASED B ASED ON SHARED COMPUTING SERVICES AND IMPROVED SOFTWAR SOFTWARE RE D DEVELOPMENT EVELOPMENT.

DISA officials are moving aggressively to can do lots of things that give you agility bring new capabilities to the warfighter more and flexibility that you would not have with rapidly through an integrated strategy based cloistered sets of information and systems,” on a combination of cloud computing and said Garing. improved software development processes. The rapid responsiveness of cloud In a recent interview, DISA Director of computing, with its easy access to shared Strategic Planning and Information John services and information, is seen as vital in Garing and Chief Technology Officer David the fast-changing, unpredictable world of Mihelcic outlined their perspective on the asymmetric warfare and natural disasters role of cloud computing in the anywhere on the globe. military, especially as embodied “Senior leaders in DoD in the agency’s Rapid Access will tell you they have to Environment Computing reduce the amount of time (RACE) initiative, as well as its it takes to assess a situation, relationship with the Forge. decide on a course of action mil software development and react,” he said. “That program. (See “New Forge for includes collaborative spaces Software,” page 4.) where they can do that and “We’re looking at how to put together war fighting integrate infrastructures so that forces without having to we can use Forge.mil to help build systems, such as in John Garing accelerate the development, the run-up to the Iraq war, testing and security which took about seven certification process. RACE months. That luxury is no then allows users to bring those longer there, so we have capabilities to the operational to have capabilities that network more quickly,” said are available all the time Mihelcic. “By coupling Forge and can be scaled to meet a and RACE together, we’ll be particular situation.” able to provide not only rapid The growing reliance on computing cycles, but also coalition operations also is ways to help accelerate the pushing the military toward development process to reduce cloud computing and other David Mihelcic the amount of time it takes to collaborative technologies, bring a piece of software to the Garing noted, pointing to DoD market to solve a warfighter need.” relief efforts following the 2004 tsunami, in But while holding out an expansive vision which nearly 30 countries were involved. for the future of cloud computing in the “Our typical way to communicate is Department of Defense, the DISA officials through our classified network, but that said they were reluctant to limit the potential didn’t work because others didn’t have access of the concept by defining it too strictly. to it, other than a few of our allies. We have to “One of the pieces of advice I got recently find spaces that allow us to share information from the CIO of a company is that when you relatively privately with people we never start to define the cloud, you’re beginning anticipated would be partners,” he said. “If to limit what it is. Personally, I don’t pay you look at the anti-piracy operations off the much attention to other people defining the coast of Somalia and Gulf of Aden, we have cloud. It’s a collaborative space in which you some non-traditional partners, including the 2 | MIT 13.9/ Who’s Who in DISA

Somalis, Yemenis, Russians, Chinese and others, and that requires us to pull together as a team and share information in a trusted fashion, but not on our national networks. “It also means that there is also a need for broader information sharing,” Garing continued. “We tend to deal in cloisters all the time, whether they are functional cloisters or operational cloisters. After something has happened is not the time to assess how you share between and among cloisters. We have to have the environment to do that beforehand, so we can act with the full force of DoD and our partners without having to build something new. That gets us again to our need to do this with speed and agility.”

SHARED ENVIRONMENT For Mihelcic, a look at government and industry definitions of cloud computing underscores the importance of the concept for DoD. “These definitions say cloud computing is a style of computing that is a pay-as-you-go model for providing scalable and elastic resources to multiple tenants. Basically, it’s a shared computing environment. Information and computing resources exist that customers rapidly turn on, to use for whatever purpose they want. That was our model during the mainframe days as well, when we had a large computing asset that customers could time-share. Some customers would regularly use the same asset over and over, while others might bring a workload that would be processed in the mainframe and the results delivered back. “This is where we’re going with modern cloud computing as well,” Mihelcic said. “We want to have elastic, scalable infrastructures that can be brought to bear on whatever problems our customers have. Some of those problems are going to be very persistent. We’re going to have persistent clouds, full of data, that are oriented toward particular purposes, such as command and control or network defense. We’ll have large piles of www.MIT-kmi.com

historical data on command and control of forces or attacks on the network, which we can use in real-world operations.” Instead of having to spend weeks or months building a computing infrastructure to support a particular application, users will be able to go to the cloud and light up on-demand computing capacity to support that application, Mihelcic explained, pointing to RACE, where customers can already order computing capacity on demand. “We have a number of offerings, including RACE, where customers can turn anything from a single virtual machine to thousands of virtual machines with pre-loaded, pre-secured operating systems—Sun Solaris Unix, Red Hat Linux, or Windows operating systems— and go to a Web portal on the NIPRNet. There, they can enter in a DoD credit card or transfer funds to DISA, and order up virtual machines, provision them through the network and bring their workload up in less than 24 hours,” he said. Another offering that is operational today is called GIG Content Delivery Service, which is essentially a version of Akamai, a commercial content delivery service, that has been adapted to DoD networks. The agency entered into a contract several years ago with Akamai, which installed a capability on classified and unclassified networks that moves both the data and the processing for critical applications out to the edges of the network, including Southwest Asia close to the warfighters. “It’s not just moving the data forward, but also the processing power,” said Mihelcic. “User requests are processed in theater, without having to transit high latency SATCOM circuits or low bandwidth terrestrial circuits in Southwest Asia.” Also under the rubric of cloud computing are capabilities such as “software platform as a service,” Robust Certificate Validation Service, and messaging services that allow one application to reliably communicate with another application, or allow for publish and subscribe relationships to be set up between applications. “Finally, we have software as a service (SaaS)—user-facing applications available on demand across the network,” Mihelcic said. “They don’t want to have to worry about any of the back-end provisioning to access a particular service. One of the best-known examples of that is Defense Connect Online, www.MIT-kmi.com

which allows users to collaborate on our classified and unclassified networks. Instead of having to buy hardware and software and load it into servers in their enclaves, or even pre-load software onto the end workstations, they just hit the URL and access the DCO collaboration service. Also, in partnership with the Army, we’ve delivered Defense Knowledge Online, DoD’s joint portal.”

PLATFORM STANDARDIZATION But those services are only the tip of the iceberg, say DISA officials, who are also moving forward with a vision of geographically distributed data centers that will offer on-demand capabilities—everything from raw virtual servers all the way to software as a service. “We’ll then tie those infrastructures together over the Global Information Grid, and be able to deploy capabilities forward into infrastructures that will support users in theater as well as elsewhere,” Mihelcic said. “Our vision is to do for computing what Internet Protocol did for communications,” he said. “We want to take computing off the table. We don’t want customers to have to worry about what kind of operating system they’re going to load, what kind of servers to buy, and how to maintain and secure them. They’re just going to hook up to the network and access available computing resources. If they’re providers of data, they’ll use our virtual services to put up databases on the network. If they’re consumers of data, they’ll point to SaaS like DCO and Forge.mil, and pull down the data and services they desire.” The cloud ought to have the common user functions that cut across the department, so people don’t have do it themselves, Garing observed. “Standardization of platforms is probably the single biggest thing we should push—how applications are built and what operating system and platform they’re built on. For most people today in government, a vendor or integrator builds their application, choosing the platform. We would prefer to have them pick one of the six or so standard platforms that we’re going have, so that we can get commonality in the back end, and ‘provision on demand’ the necessary processing and storage power. “The back end of the cloud is already certified and accredited for security purposes, so the application people need to worry only about their own end,” Garing continued. “It’s

ne for them. We ought to be able to get done pure data centers as a result of this, as we have virtual data centers that are lights-out, lights-dim like most of ours are today, and controlled from a few places. It’s not about the brick and mortar, but about computing in the cloud.” Another benefit of the cloud computing approach, Garing noted, was the agility available to agencies by being able to use operating dollars for needed computing resources, rather than procurement dollars to buy hardware. “Operating dollars are easier to come by and not quite as tightly controlled as procurement or RDT&E. That gives us a lot of agility. Through the efficiency imperatives we’re doing today, this is the future. “Our director, Lieutenant General Pollett, has a phrase he calls ‘enterprise infrastructure,’ which you could use to say cloud. We’re busily working toward that, taking what we’ve already done and looking two, four and 10 years out into the future as to where we’re going to be with this infrastructure. There’s no other way to get at the challenges we face and to gain the efficiencies that we need, except doing what we’re intending to do,” Garing said. Mihelcic summed up his perspective on cloud computing with a historical analogy to the early days of the Industrial Revolution, when handcrafted production by artisans was being replaced by mass production using standardized, interchangeable parts. “We’re trying to do for software what interchangeable parts, division of labor and standardization of materials processes did in the physical world. We’re moving from handcrafting artisans, where every piece of software is a unique creation, to a repeatable process, an assembly line for software, so that software developers don’t have to worry about the entire stack, but be able to focus on a particular task and put their expertise to solving that,” he said. “We’re going to have standardization of interfaces and interchangeability to allow us to scale this process up. This is a journey we’re embarked upon, and we can potentially reap huge rewards.” ✯

Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. harrisond@kmimediagroup com For more information related to this subject, search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.

MIT 13.9/ Who’s Who in DISA | 3

BY HAR ARRISON ARRI RISO SON N DONN ONNELLY O NNEL ELLY LY MIT EDITOR HARRISOND@KMIMEDIAGROUP.COM

COOLLABORATIVE LLABORATIVE D DEVELOPMENT EVELOPMENT EENVIRONMENT NVIRONMENT S SPEEDS PEEDS A AND ND S STRENGTHENS TRENGTHENS TTHE HE O OFTEN FTEN CUMBERSOME PROCESS OF WRITING AND DEPLOYING CODE FOR MILITARY USES.

Inspired by the model for software development used by the open source community, DISA has created a collaborative development environment/toolset designed to make the often cumbersome process of writing and deploying code for military uses faster, more efficient and more in tune with the needs of warfighters and other end-users. Available at www.forge.mil for military, Department of Defense civilians, and DoD contractors for new and existing projects, the initiative enables collaborative software development and cross-program sharing of software, system components, and services in support of net-centric operations and warfare. Launched last spring for unclassified DoD use, Forge.mil recently passed 3,000 users on the site, with about 130 different development projects ranging from software utilities to command and control, situational awareness and a wide range of other applications, according to Project Director Rob Vietmeyer. The program rece re ceiv ived ed aaut utho hori rity ty ttoo op oper erat atee on tthe he ssec ecre rett received authority operate secret SIPRNet this summer. The first-launched Forge.mil property was SoftwareForge, a collaborative environment for shared development of open source and DoD community source software. The goal of the project, Vietmeyer expl ex plai aine ned, d, iiss to shorten sho hort rten en the the development dev devel elop opme ment nt explained, life cycle from a matter of years to one of weeks and months, by bringing the actual software developers into the process as a critical stakeholder and enabling 4 | MIT 13.9/ Who’s Who in DISA

collaboration and information sharing across the community. “In the department today, I think we’re still stuck in the ‘dark ages’ of software development,” Vietmeyer said. “Deploying software today is too slow and costly. Improving our ability to rapidly deploy new and improved software is critical to maintaining our war fighting advantage, not only in cyberspace, but the physical world as well. Increasingly, the speed and agility of our software development efforts will determine our ability to exploit an enemy’s vulnerabilities and to successfully defend an enemy’s attack.” In moving forward with the Forge project beginning last fall, DISA emphasized some basic ideas, he explained. “One was that we need to be able to pull together the actual software developers and incorporate them as critical stakeholders in the system deployment and operations process. When we look across a traditional system development effort, often the people who are writing the software are outside contractors and se seve vera rall la laye yers rs rrem emov oved ed ffro rom m th thee Do DoD’ D’ss and several layers removed from DoD’s IT deployment and operations processes. Typically there’s very little interaction between the developers, end-users, IA certifiers, testers and system administrators until very late in the development process. Early and ongoing collaboration across all stakeholders is critical.” Anot An othe herr issue issu is suee concerned conc co ncer erne nedd a lack lack of of Another knowledge transfer across DoD developer communities, which can lead to the building of duplicate solutions and other inefficiencies. The solution to that, officials

concluded, was to enable much greater visibility, collaboration and information sharing across the DoD development community. By providing a platform for developers to share their software and lessons learned, the SoftwareForge project enables a net-centric approach to software development. This is leading to the formation of communities of interest around particular technology areas, such as people in the department who are interested in or using technologies like Microsoft SharePoint development, Oracle software, Active Directory, and public key infrastructure, for example. “We’re seeing not just point software development projects, but also communities forming where experts can come together to share their experiences, knowledge and software components. There’s tremendous value in that,” Vietmeyer said. The prototype for the SoftwareForge project was the open source community, which has developed new ways to pull toge to geth ther er disparate ddis ispa para rate te ddev evel elop oper erss fr from om aacr cros osss together developers across the globe to collaborate on a particular project. The goal, Vietmeyer noted, was to “create a dynamic environment where the software is not just a static object, but a living thing that continues to be enhanced by multiple organizations and people, all of which benefit from ongoing innovation.”

DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT Another aspect of the Forge project concerns the delivery of tools and services www.MIT-kmi.com

to support the development and deployment processes. “Recognizing that technology allows us to deliver services over the Web, we wanted to focus on how to deliver tools and services to support software developers and program managers,” Vietmeyer said. “In the past, we would write policy at the DoD enterprise level, but we would require each program to go build and operate their own software development infrastructure. That is both costly and time consuming. In projects I was involved with in the past, we would have to evaluate development tools, acquire them, and get them accredited and installed. So it would take me months before we could really start our development effort and focus on delivering the capabilities the end-users were looking for. “We now have the capability and technology to deliver those sorts of capabilities as services over the network, achieving economies of scale and enabling it to be turned on overnight,” he added. The key components of the DISA strategy were to enable information sharing among DoD developers, enable early and ongoing collaboration between developers and other IT stakeholders, and provide cost-effective, valuable services to that environment, Vietmeyer said. Today, there are two primary use-cases for SoftwareForge, he continued, starting with developers who want to create a piece of software and make it available to others within the DoD environment. SoftwareForge is being provided for free to support and encourage the development and distribution of software that can be shared across the department. SoftwareForge projects have to be provided under an open source software license software or the DoD “community source” usage agreement. Thee community Th comm co mmun unit ityy source sour so urce ce agreement aagr gree eeme ment nt is is designed to facilitate the distribution of software developed for the DoD. Under government acquisition regulations, the government acquires rights to use the software it sponsors, but does not acquire ownership of the software or intellectual property. The community source usage agre ag reem emen entt encourages enco en cour urag ages es sharing sha hari ring ng and and reuse reu euse se agreement of software acquired with government purpose rights. So far, there are more than 130 development projects that have posted over www.MIT-kmi.com

340 software releases, with new projects being created each week. As the number of projects and software release hosted on the site grows, there is an increasing likelihood that people looking for software might find a useful solution on the site. So in addition to collaborative development, there is an emerging use-case for people looking for software to use or deploy within their environment. At well over 4,000 downloads, the most downloaded software is an extension to the Mozilla Firefox browser that enables support for the DoD’s common access card.

FEE FOR SERVICE To the original open-community capability, DISA is providing a fee-forservice version that is designed to support private development efforts. The tool base being used for the open and collaborative development provides functions such as software version control, bug tracking, issue tracking, basic project management and team communication capabilities. There are a lot of DoD projects that want those same sort of capabilities, Vietmeyer noted, but are unable to participate in more open and public environment. Sometimes a development project doesn’t have sufficient rights to release its software to the more open community, or the project involves restricted information or data that would be inappropriate to release, or the project team wants more control and privacy in their development environment. As a result, DISA was scheduled to stand up a fee-for-service version of the tools in October. Organizations that are looking for tools to support their software development needs can come to DISA and get those tools turned on for their project’s own use. use. Rather Rat Rathe herr than than having hav h avin ingg to worry wor w orry ry about aabo bout ut own doing tool selection, acquisition, security evaluation, installation and ongoing operations, they can get development tools delivered as Web-based or cloud-computing services. “You can come to DISA, order a software development environment for your your own own use, u use se,, we’ll we’l we ’lll turn turn it it on, on, and and for you’ll be up and running,” he said. “We’re covering our costs on that, but we’re able to achieve economies of scale both from a licensing perspective and in the

derlying operations. We have built an underlying extensible hosting environment that allows us to grow as customers come on, fully leveraging DISA’s computing services and data center capabilities.” Undergirding the existing capability is a set of tools based on products from a company called CollabNet, which offers collaborative software development capabilities. CollabNet TeamForge, a leading application life cycle management platform for distributed software development teams, and CollabNet Subversion, a version control and software configuration management solution for distributed teams, are at the heart of Forge.mil. Moving forward, officials are looking at incorporating additional tools that support the full software development life cycle. Today, the project is primarily focused on development, but is moving into software testing, evaluation and system deployment. “We’re incorporating both existing DoD tools as well as looking at additional COTS software that could be delivered as a service to fill out the full software development life cycle,” Vietmeyer said. The Forge.mil project is also dovetailing with DISA’s Rapid Access Computing Environment, which is providing a cloud computing infrastructure as a service Vietmeyer summed up Forge.mil this way: “We’re changing from our typical IT development approach, where we have to spend at least six months on requirements, eight months on development and several months on evaluation before we can get new software into the users’ hands. We want to enable agile development and rapid deployment, with close coordination between the end-users and other stakeholders throughout the process.” DISA expects four more components For Forge ge.m .mil il to to be launched llau aunc nche hedd in future ffut utur uree of Forge.mil releases: CertificationForge, which will support agile certification; ProjectForge, which will provide private project portals; StandardsForge, which will drive collaborative standards development; and TestForge, which will provide on-demand software testing tools. ✯ Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. harrisond@kmimediagroup com For more information related to this subject, search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.

MIT MIT 13.9/ 12.8 /Who’s Who’sWho Whoin inDISA DISA|| 5

Spectrum Leader Builds Access DISA office strengthens engagement in providing support to war fighting commanders.

Paige Atkins Director of DISA’s Defense Spectrum Organization (Editor’s Note: Following up on her earlier appearance in MIT T magazine’s Cover Story Question & Answer feature, Paige Atkins, director of DISA’s Defense Spectrum Organization, recently shared her thoughts on her job and the spectrum issues facing the Department of Defense. See MIT, T Volume 11, Issue 10, November 2007.)

How has your role as director of the Defense Spectrum Organization [DSO] evolved? Fundamentally, my role has not changed since we last spoke almost two years ago. My role was to ensure we are developing inno in nova vati tive ve ssol olut utio ions ns tto o he help lp ssec ecur uree gl glob obal al sspe pect ctru rum m ac acce cess ss ffor or innovative solutions secure global spectrum access U.S. and allied operations, now and into the future. We are still posturing for the future and providing capabilities that will result in the desired effects—spectrum access. However, the DSO is more deeply engaged than ever with the operational community, provid ding su supp ppor ortt to tthe he C COC OCOM OMss an andd wa warr fi figh ghti ting ng ccom omma mand nder erss. providing support COCOMs fighting commanders. Our goal is to enable information dominance through effective spectrum operations. We aare re aals lso working worki kingg cl clos osel elyy wi with th tthe he Office Off O ffic icee of the Assista tant nt also closely Assistant Secr Se cret etar aryy of D Def efen ense se ffor or Networks and Information Integration to Secretary Defense deve de velo ve lopp an lo andd im impl plem pl emen em entt ke en keyy sp spec ectr trum um policies that will drive new develop implement spectrum bbehaviors—a be havi ha vior vi ors— or s—aa ke s— keyy co comp m oon mp nen entt to t ppos ostu turi ring ffor or tthe he ffut utur uree. S Sin ince ce w wee component posturing future. Since last la st ttal alke ked, d tthe he D SO h ass aalso lsoo ma ls made de ggre r at pro re pprogress r gr ro gres esss in upd p ating the talked, DSO has great updating tool to olss and ol and capabilities capa ca pabi pa bili bi liti li ties ti es w h ave ve ffor or spe sspectrum pect pe ctru ct rum ru m ma mana nage na geme ge ment me n . So nt Some me ooff tools wee ha have management. them th em aare re bbeing eing ei ing iimplemented mple mp leme le ment me nted nt ed dn ow,, an ow andd mo m ore re aare ree ttoo co come me aass we m ovee ov now, more move forw fo rwar rw ardd wi ar with th tthe he G loba lo ball El ba Elec ectr ec trom tr omag om agne ag neeti t c Sp Spec ectr ec trum tr um IInformation n or nf orma m ti ma tion forward Global Electromagnetic Spectrum

6 | MIT 13.9/ Who’s Who in DISA

Syst Sy stem em [GE [GEMS MSIS IS]]. GEM G EMSI SIS S will will ult u ltim imat atel elyy en enab able le a n ew par pparadigm arad adig igm m System [GEMSIS]. GEMSIS ultimately enable new for more flexible and dynamic spectrum management. That is something that the department is leading within the federal government, so we are excited to be in that role. I think it comes as a surprise to many people outside the depa de part rtme ment nt, particularly part pa rtic icul ular arly ly iin n th thee co comm mmer erci cial al tel ttelecommunications elec ecom ommu muni nica cati tion onss department, commercial industry, that DoD is such a complex and sophisticated user and manager of spectrum. In many ways, we have to be more p og pr ogre ress ssiv ivee an andd pi pion onee eeri ring ng iin n developing spectrum management progressive pioneering ther si ing gle age aagency, genc ncyy, com ccompany ompa pany ny tools and techniques than any oth other single ourr sp spec ectr trum um ppro rofi file le aand nd ffoo ootp print or industry. That’s because ou spectrum profile footprint exte ex tend ndss across ac multi tipl plee kinds kind ki ndss of services sser ervi vice cess and and uses—from uses us es—f —fro rom m land land extends multiple mobi mo bile le com commu muni nica cati tion onss to ssat atel elli lite te llin inks k , fr ffrom om sensors to radars. mobile communications satellite links, And our our geography geoggraph ge phy is literally literal ally ly unlimited. unl u nlim limit ited ed.. We W are are on on land, l ndd, in la n the And r,, oon n water wate wa terr and te and in in space. So we we have have to to be forward rd d looking loo ooki king ki ng and and air, inno noova nova vati tive ti ve tto o ad add ddr dres dres esss th his is ccomplexity. ompl om plex pl exit ex ity. it y. y. innovative address this

www.MIT-kmi.com

What do you see as the most pressing issues facing your office? Few technological advances have transformed the way we live and work more than wireless communications. However, the exponential growth in demands for wireless voice, video and data has us headed on a collision course with the reality that electromagnetic spectrum is a finite resource. From the military’s perspective, there are serious concerns about spectrum requirements not only for communications, but for radar, sensors, navigation, and a whole slew of capabilities that our warfighters depend on. Spectrum conflicts on the battlefield, especially when coordinating with coalition forces, can have lethal consequences. Projected requirements for using electromagnetic spectrum in both the public and private sectors are much greater than what is really feasible in today’s environment. Think about an unmanned aerial system [UAS] flying in Afghanistan, being remotely flown by someone in the U.S. The UAS is transmitting full motion video that is being simultaneously broadcast around the world to different analysts conducting an online chat about how to interpret what is going on and what to do about it. That information is sent to the commander, who releases a smart weapon guided by GPS to hit a high-value target. Every aspect of what I just described could not be accomplished without spectrum. Spectrum is the lifeblood of the battlefield: We cannot execute our mission or missions without it. As we experience growing military requirements, we have been faced with doing more with less, forcing the DoD to become much more efficient, which is a good thing. In some cases we are limited by physics—there are certain applications that require certain frequency bands due to the technical characteristics needed to perform a specific function, such as target detection at a giv given en range. ran ange ge. But But the the bo bott ttom om line lin inee is that tha thatt we are are focused foc ocus used ed on on given bottom using spectrum as efficiently and effectively as practical while providing the greatest benefit to the warfighter. DoD’s supply of spectrum is finite, and always will be. The requirements, however, are not finite. We have seen estimates that th at bbyy 20 2025 25, ba band ndwi widt dth h ne need edss fo forr an anyy la larg rgee co conf nfli lict ct w wil illl ex exce ceed ed 2025, bandwidth needs large conflict will exceed 1 terabit every second. So there is a lot at stake—billions of dollars in system design costs, the lives of both civilians and our servicemen and women, and the di iff f er eren ence ce bbet etwe ween en vvic icto tory ry aand nd difference between victory defe de feat at. defeat. How do you How you effectively eeff ffec ecti tive vely ly satisfy ssat atis isfy fy the the growing ggro rowingg military millit itar aryy and and consumer requirements??

www.MIT-kmi.com

The department does not exist in isolation. We are proactive participants in policy discussions in Washington, D.C., over spectrum resources. The common thread in these discussions is that there has to be a balance in spectrum policy that allows growth in new commercial wireless services, such as broadband, but does not threaten the ability of the department or other federal agencies to serve the public, as their missions require. We are confident that balance will be maintained. There is plenty of precedent for close cooperation between the industry and federal users, and this has frequently amounted to a win-win scenario for both. At DSO, for example, we have been working for many months supporting the relocation of military systems from spectrum that was reallocated for Advanced Wireless Services [AWS]—the 1710-1755 MHz band. DoD and other federal agencies have transitioned 237 MHz of spectrum to commercial use over the last 15 years. That includes the 45 MHz of AWS spectrum, which is now being used to support commercial 3G wireless services. The United States has been a world leader in making spectrum available for new wireless technologies, and that benefits the entire country. However, we must continue to balance economic prosperity and national security, as well as other key uses such as public safety and scientific research. We will continue to do our part. The reality is that a vast majority of spectrum is already shared between commercial and government users. More than 93 percent of the U.S. spectrum allocation table is shared among federal and non-federal spectrum users. Only about 1.5 percent is reserved exclusively for federal government use, and DoD is using only a portion of that. Nevertheless, as in the past, the department will work with everyone, considering any specific proposal that does not harm the U.S. military’s ability to do its job. It sounds as if public-private teamwork is important to you. Absolutely. The need to balance commercial with governmental access to spectrum is something DoD and the federal government cann ca nnot ot ttac ackl klee al alon onee. A kkey ey eele leme ment nt ttoo ou ourr st stra rate tegy gy iiss go gove vernment cannot tackle alone. element strategy government and industry collaboration, because we ultimately all have the same challenges and the same goals. The key is working together pec ectr trum um aacc cces esss fo forr al alll of u uss whil hile bbalancing ala lanc ncin ingg th thos osee to maximize sp spectrum access while those nati tion on.. My ttea eam m an andd competing interests that are essential to our na nation. team pon onsi sibi bili liity to to enable enab en able ab le and and empower eemp mpow mp ower ow er I take very seriously our resp responsibility the me men n an andd wo wome men n who h ar aree pr prot o ec ot ecti ting ti ng g oour u n ur a io at ion n an andd ou ourr li liv ves,, the women protecting nation lives, cces cc esss iss ccri r ti ri tica caal to tthe heir he ir ssuc ucce uc cess ss. ✯ and spectrum aaccess critical their success.

MIT 13.9/ Who’s Who in DISA | 7

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Securing Against Sophisticated Cyber-Attacks Mark Orndorff Director Program Executive Office Mission Assurance and Network Operations DISA Mark Orndorff is director of DISA’s Program Executive Office for Mission Assurance and Network Operations, where he manages the acquisition, development and implementation of DoD capabilities providing responsive, secure and interoperable netcentric solutions necessary to secure and operate the Global Information Grid. Prior to this role, Orndorff served as chief of DISA’s Field Security Operations organization, where he was the single IA certification authority within DISA, supporting accreditation decisions for all DISA systems and networks. Before joining the civil service, Orndorff served as an Army officer with assignments as a company commander and platoon leader. He attended the University of Virginia, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in environmental science. He also received a Master of Science in computer systems from the Air Force Institute of Technology. Orndorff was interviewed by MIT T Editor Harrison Donnelly. Q: How would you describe your overall approach to mission assurance? A: What we’ve tried to do is to have a stated high level objective, and then as we work our initiatives within the portfolio, we can make sure that we’re all staying on track toward that higher level objective. It may sound like ‘mom and apple pie,’ but I think it’s important that everyone who’s working in this space knows what we’re trying to achieve. The basic high level statement that we’ve captured is that our ultimate goal is assured mission execution in the face of cyber-attack from a sophisticated adversary. As we keep that goal in mind, we start building out initiatives targeted to support that overall objective. One example of the implication of that is that, before we had that stated goal, we were just doing security and IA initiatives that improved the security of the network. But we weren’t necessarily thinking in terms of a sophisticated adversary, or aligning them to specify DoD missions. So that’s changed our approach a bit. If we were doing an initiative that reduced the noise by addressing the petty crime class of activity—low level, unsophisticated hacker activity—we felt that was good, because the number of incidents on the network was reduced. But that wasn’t necessarily leading us to a capability that would support us in the face of a cyber-attack from a sophisticated adversary. www.MIT-kmi.com

We took a step back and said let’s now focus on this higher level of objective, of providing capabilities that will give us assured mission execution in the face of a cyber-attack from a sophisticated adversary. With that in mind, we tailored our approach and came up with three basic outcomes that we’re working toward, all contributing to that higher level objective. They are reducing attack surface, improving network command and control, and improving safe sharing. The main thing is that we have a focused effort to keep in mind both mission assurance and the threat that we are facing. Those two things drive how we approach every initiative. Q: What do you mean by the idea of reducing attack surface, and how do you plan to achieve it? A: Within the broad category of reducing attack surface, basically what we’re trying to do is to make it harder for an adversary to attack DoD networks and impact DoD missions. A fundamental principle of that is that we have well defined configuration standards that say that as we take commercial products and industry standard technology, we know how to configure those devices, applications and systems so MIT 13.9/ Who’s Who in DISA | 11

that they are hard to attack. We’re taking away features that we don’t need for DoD, and avenues of attack that would put us at risk. We have those defined standards in documents we call Security Technical Implementation Guides. Our goal in reducing the attack surface is to translate that into automation, so that we have the ability to configure our devices the way we want them to be configured automatically, and maintain those configurations with tools that will give us the ability to detect whenever a configuration is out of compliance, and use machine-to-machine capabilities to make those corrections and bring those devices back into compliance. At a higher level in the network architecture, we have the overall network perimeters themselves such as the NIPRNet perimeter facing the Internet. The NIPRNet boundary was initially designed to be reliable and have great performance characteristics. What we’re doing now is designing it to have a reduced attack surface, where we only pass traffic across the perimeter that has a valid mission requirement, and put into that perimeter devices and technology that will inspect the traffic and look for malicious code or attacks and stop them at the perimeter whenever possible. Our first phase was simple: figuring out exactly what devices need to talk to the Internet. We’ve done a phase called ‘whitelisting,’ where we have captured and identified exactly what addresses need to be exposed to the Internet, and blocked everything else. In our traffic analysis, we found that that has reduced the number of devices that interact with the Internet by more than 95 percent. That’s 95 percent of the devices that used to be exposed to an attack from an Internet vector, that now are no longer accessible from an Internet attack perspective. That’s a huge step forward. Now that we’ve gotten the remaining 5 percent identified, we’re in the acquisition process to find technology that we can put at the perimeter and inspect and add protection layers for each type of traffic that crosses the boundary. The first one we’re going to do is Domain Name Service [DNS]. We’ll have a proxy at the perimeter to inspect all DNS traffic to make sure it’s safe. After that will be the Web and e-mail. We’re walking through step by step and providing protection layers at the boundary. We have a similar thing between the NIPRNet and the DoD classified network, where we’re putting in devices that allow us to better defend that perimeter and reduce that attack surface. We’re just going through it step by step and asking how to make it harder for an adversary to attack the networks we’re operating. The last piece of reducing the attack surface is what we call ‘driving out anonymity.’ That means making sure we know what devices and people are on the network through strong authentication techniques, and make sure we don’t have anything on the network that doesn’t belong there. The foundation of that is the public key infrastructure [PKI] that we have in place on the unclassified network today, and are putting an enhanced capability on the SIPRNet with hardware token PKI in the future. That will give us a much better ability to identify what’s on the network and only allow what needs to be there.

that we need to leverage those in a more military operational support construct, where we have the ability to use machine-to-machine techniques to command and control the network and engage with an adversary, know what’s happening on the network and what our readiness status is, and get the situational awareness that we need to operate effectively in the face of a cyber-attack. As we implement the capabilities I’ve mentioned, we’re building into those efforts an architecture that gives us global situational awareness. We take information provided by the technologies we’re fielding to reduce the attack surface, and build that into a hierarchical structure, so we can give network defenders and commanders at all levels the information they need to operate during a potential cyber-attack. It’s not so much that we have a new list of projects targeted at network command and control, but that we have a different approach to the projects we were already doing, to provide machine-to-machine information and capture that in a militarily useful way. There are some initiatives targeted specifically at that. We have a common operational picture that will take the information that we’re bringing together and provide useful ways of analyzing that information. But primarily, it’s saying that as we take standard commercial products and put them on the network, we need to do that in a way that is different from how industry might do it, to help support the military C2 requirements.

Q: What role does network command and control play, and how can you strengthen it?

A: That question hits the issue that I’m spending the majority of my time on now. We have a good plan for taking requirements and coming up with technology and capabilities that support them. What we’re struggling with more than anything is how to get that into the operational community to achieve the desired effect. You’ve written in the past on the Host Based Security System [HBSS], which is a

A: This is probably the single biggest change in focus during the year I’ve been in this job. We always have been working initiatives to reduce the attack surface, but as we did those, we realized in the past year 12 | MIT 13.9/ Who’s Who in DISA

Q: How can you improve safe sharing? A: There is a fundamental point that sometimes those of us in the information assurance lose sight of. That is that our objective is not to do security for security’s sake, but to support mission requirements by getting information to the people who need it in a militarily useful time frame. The implication to us of keeping safe sharing on our list of key objectives is that as we take on initiatives, we need to figure out how the effort will provide the information a partner or DoD user needs in a safe way. The idea is that we don’t want to block the flows of information, but to support flows of information between DoD users, our coalition partners and other government agencies, and to align with the wide range of DoD missions, to ensure that we are positioned in advance to support the safe sharing of information across the various boundaries. This safe sharing goal ties back into our efforts to reduce the attack surface, because we can’t reduce the attack surface in a way that keeps us from sharing the information that we need to. As we build in the identity capabilities in PKI, for example, we need to do that with the idea that we have coalition partners that need to be part of the infrastructure, as well as industry and other government agencies. In everything we are working on, we are considering the requirements for moving information across boundaries. Q: As you work on mission assurance, what messages would you most like to communicate to those in DoD about how to contribute to improved security?

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good example of that. From a technology standpoint, HBSS has some tremendous capabilities. But when we take that to the community of military operators, how do we make sure that we’ve done all the right things to train and prepare the operational side to take full advantage of those capabilities that we’re offering. The transition from development and acquisition into operations is the biggest challenge that we have now. Communication between the operational community and the program office is the key element. We have some focus on compliance efforts, to go out and inspect people to see if they are doing the right thing. That’s an important part of it, but the more important piece is getting the information flow so that when people out there who are trying to do the right thing are struggling, we have the flow back to the program office so we know where we need to help. We then bring resources to the table to work through whatever the operational challenges. I know those challenges are out there, and that soldiers, sailors and airmen are challenged every day with a lot of requirements to keep networks running and support mission requirements. Operating the capabilities we bring to the table is more work for people who are already overtaxed. That feedback loop—with us providing the information to help them understand what they need to do to fully leverage the capabilities, and them helping us know where we need to make changes and improve the capabilities—is key.

ce of attacks outside of the cloud, in the can defend even in the face user work space and the edge devices. There’s a big opportunity as we bring technology to secure and protect the cloud, and creating an effective defensive perimeter between the cloud and the edge devices. The second, which we’re just starting to look at in my office, is the implication of IP convergence. As we go into some of the directions that DISA is moving forward on with that, what are the IA implications? If we’re doing VoIP, which has voice crossing boundaries that we have been securing, what are the implications? There is a third piece of that as well. General Pollett has just asked me to set up an engineering level workshop with industry, where we don’t have any kind of marketing discussion, but rather strategy and architecture discussions between our senior engineers and senior engineers from industry. We’re working hard now to figure out the best way to get that established and keep it legal, but it’s going to be a huge opportunity for us. We’re thinking hard about what we’re trying to accomplish, and then going out with requests for information on specific pieces of the solutions. But we haven’t had the higher level dialogue about what our architecture is in a general sense, and if we’re approaching problems in the right way. We’ll move forward on that soon, and want that message to get out to industry. Q: What message would you like Congress to hear about what you are doing?

Q: What similar message would you give to industry? A: I think industry brings tremendous capabilities that directly align with our mission requirements. Even though I strongly believe that some of the things we want to do are slightly different from what industry might be doing, it’s close enough that industry has solutions that we can take and leverage directly. The biggest message I would send to industry is that we need help in allowing us to have a diverse set of capabilities from the entire marketplace, without any one vendor trying to tie us into their full product line. I need open architectures that allow me to take each requirement and identify the best solution. An open framework that allows for a diverse set of capabilities, with everyone competing on a level playing field for each one, is the single message I would like to send. It’s kind of like my relationship with my dogs. If I put them on a leash, they will pull as hard as they can to get away. If I take them off the leash, they will stay right on my heels, and as long as I treat them right, they will stay very close. I’m sort of the same way. If industry tries to tie us down, I’m going to try as hard as I can to break loose. If they support an open architecture, we’ll have a great partnership. Q: What technological capabilities would you like to see industry working on? A: My primary focus is on getting the solutions that we’ve already identified into the field, into operations and getting the desired effect. I have a close partnership with DISA’s chief information assurance executive, Richard Hale, who is focused on looking further down the road. He’s the best person to ask that question. But I would say that one of the two areas that we have gaps in is in the overall concept of cloud computing, and what requirements that brings in that we need technological solutions for—to have a protected cloud that we www.MIT-kmi.com

A: We’ve gotten very good support from Congress in recognizing the importance of information assurance and getting money to support our requirements. There’s never enough money, but I would say we have had good support. What we owe back is the assurance that the money is being used wisely. We have a good strategy, and we’re focused on achieving the desired effects that that money was appropriated to achieve, and we have the feedback mechanisms in place to know when it’s working and when it’s not. One of the key aspects is that we aren’t just buying things and hoping they work. We have in DoD a very robust set of exercises where we use a variety of sophisticated attack techniques to see what’s working. We’re constantly getting the feedback we need to focus the next thing we work on, or how to better use the capabilities that we’ve already deployed. The message I’d like to convey is that the appropriations that we’ve received are being used wisely, and we have a good strategy and a good feedback mechanism to tell us where we have gaps. Q: Is there anything else you would like to add? A: I would sum up by saying that we have a challenging problem space. As DoD moves forward to leverage the best benefits of technology, we’re working hard to make sure that the information assurance and mission assurance aspects are worked in parallel, so we’re not holding people back from taking advantage of technology advances, but we also aren’t in a position where an advance in capabilities creates a risk to DoD missions. It’s a race every day to keep up with the threats and the new types of capabilities that DoD needs to support our mission priorities. It’s a challenge every day, but it’s exciting and we have the right team focused on it. I can’t say enough about the people that we have here in DISA and throughout the department working the information assurance mission space. ✯ MIT 13.9/ Who’s Who in DISA | 13

Multiplexing Platform Gains Joint Certification

Crew Display System Improves Vehicle Situational Awareness

The Marconi MHL 3000 Multi-Haul Optical Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) platform from Ericsson Federal Inc. has passed rigorous testing to ensure that U.S. government agencies’ critical communications can be delivered with the highest security and reliability. The platform was tested and certified by the Defense Information Systems Agency Joint Interoperability Test Command, and is now listed on the Unified Capabilities Approved Products List in the Transport Appliances category under the Network Infrastructure section. MHL 3000 is a flexible and versatile platform to address the optical transport in metro and core applications, reaching the 3.2 Tb/s capacity over 4,000 km reach. The single platform addresses a range of applications from CWDM to high DWDM channel counts and longer distances, at rates up to 100 Gb/s, to satisfy increased traffic demand and higher bit rate services.

The Integrated Crew Display System (ICDS) for military vehicles from Rockwell Collins provides enhanced situational awareness, resulting in increased crew safety and mission effectiveness. ICDS provides video feeds via a helmet mounted display (HMD) from multiple sensors and systems in the vehicle, which can be simultaneously viewed by all crew members. The Vehicle Video Switch, a component of the system, accepts ts video sources from the electronic systems in virtually any type of military vehicle includingg the Abrams, Bradley, HMMWV and Strykers, and provides the display to vehicle crew members. bers. Crew members can select from any of the he video input sources, and view them on the he PV35 HMD. Up to four viewers can simultaneously ultaneously view the displays. The operator ator controller is attachedd to the crew member’s vest, and is provided by the PV35 Display Control Module.

Authentication Solutions Clear Security Testing The USB-based eToken PRO 72K (Java) and eToken PRO Smartcard 72K (Java) authentication solutions from SafeNet, a provider of information security now affiliated under common management with Aladdin Knowledge Systems, have received Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 Level 2 and 3 certifications. The broad and versatile range of authentication solutions offered by SafeNet enables organizations to protect sensitive data, digital identities, and network resources and infrastructure across multiple domains, including VPNs, laptops and PCs. These solutions are supported by the Token Management System 5.0, which simplifies password and authenticator management and deployment. As the flagship product of SafeNet’s certificate-based authentication portfolio, the eToken PRO USB, along with its smart card form factor, are the company’s first Java-based authenticators to undergo rigorous testing by the accredited National Institute of Standards and Technology cryptographic module testing lab at InfoGard.

Test Command Awards IT Support Services Task Order The Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) has awarded a five-year, $42 million task order to STG to provide enterprise information technology support services to the ATEC deputy chief of staff for information management. The task order, which was awarded under the Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-2 Services contract vehicle, is a continuation of STG’s support to ATEC under a previous seven-year, $67 million contract. To help satisfy ATEC’s requirements, STG brought together a team of IT service providers with proven enterprise network operations, network defense and service desk operations skills. STG will continue to provide services in the areas of customer support, software engineering, Web development, network operations, information assurance, IT logistics, training and administrative services.

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New Offerings Aid Federal Agency Cybersecurity QinetiQ North America has unveiled four new offerings designed to help federal agencies jump-start their cybersecurity. The services can provide the fundamental framework necessary for practical steps into the world of cybersecurity. With this core foundation, agencies can proactively protect their staff, their sensitive information and their infrastructure from emerging online threats and risks. The services are cybersafety training designed to introduce employees to cyberthreats and Internet risk; a cyber-risk and vulnerability assessment aimed at helping identify an organization’s threats, risks and vulnerabilities from an adversary’s perspective; malware discovery, with information covering details of the malware ecosystem, distribution chain, actors, providers and IP spaces involved in generating and spreading it; and comprehensive malware awareness, which identifies the threats to an organization’s mission that are present, active and attacking in the wild today.

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Information Engineer

Q& A

Addressing Enterprisewide Technical Challenges

Richard Williams Principal Director Global Information Grid Enterprise Services Engineering DISA Richard Williams is the principal director for the Global Information Grid Enterprise Services Engineering Directorate of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The Engineering Directorate is composed of over 900 government and contractor personnel. Its vision is to plan, engineer, acquire, and integrate joint, interoperable, secure global net-centric solutions satisfying the needs of the warfighter. Previously, Williams was chief of the Transport Engineering Division and responsible for system engineering activities related to the Department of Defense teleport program, satellite communications (SATCOM), including military and commercial satellite and ground systems, wireless network systems, terrestrial networking including local, metropolitan, and wide area transport systems, network security, the transition to Internet Protocol version Six and for strategic communications. He also served in the Army Signal Corps at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and received the Meritorious Service Medal. Williams is a member of the IEEE and the AFCEA. He has published technical papers, given presentations at conferences and was a lecturer for the AFCEA Professional Development Center and the Marine Corps Communications Officers School. He has received numerous awards for special and outstanding service, and was selected to the Senior Executive Service in July 2003. He is a graduate of Lehigh University with a bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in electrical engineering.

deployed tactical warfighter. My second major role is to serve as one of the DISA senior champions for the technical work force. Within DISA, we have approximately 900 engineers and computer scientists. In my senior-champion capacity, I help the agency develop and maintain a first-class engineering work force to fulfill DISA missions.

Q: What is your primary role as the principal director of engineering for DISA?

Q: What major engineering challenges do you see as DISA prepares for the future?

A: I have two major roles. The first is to direct activities associated with DISN transport and IP network engineering, strategic nuclear C3, national leadership communications engineering, DoD enterprisewide systems engineering, and cross-program integration engineering. To accomplish this, we have established two engineering centers. The Systems Engineering Center is led by Gerry Doyle, and is where we manage and solve DISA internal technical issues, DoD-wide technical issues, and where we execute our role as the DoD executive agent for standards. The GIG Engineering Center, led by Alan Lewis, is where we architect, design, develop, implement and sustain communications/network engineering solutions and capabilities that support an array of users ranging from the White House to the

A: DISA has evolved significantly during the past decade to become an end-to-end provider of information technology services. The DISA capability portfolio includes C2 applications, IA, computing services and an assured IP-based, high-bandwidth optical network. Providing these capabilities to users in a seamless fashion is an enormous challenge. Success requires multiple technical disciplines and a solid systems-engineering approach. For example, software and network engineers must work together to roll out any new capability, given the interdependence of these solution components. The applications developers cannot simply assume that the network will always provide low-latency performance, and the applications design needs to account for this.

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Our challenge is twofold. First, our engineering processes must be sufficiently agile to bring together the right technical expertise at the right time during a program’s life cycle. The second challenge is the ability to forecast and develop the necessary emerging technical skill sets. Work force technical skill-set relevance and evolution is essential for both our government and contract work force. We recognize these challenges and are currently addressing them. Additionally, we continue to serve as the assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration technical arm and act as the ‘joint technical advocate’ for the department. The net-centric environment and focus requires us to identify and address key enterprisewide technical issues. One example is the placement of enterprise services on the network. We are developing technical guidance to ensure that as programs plug into the network and deliver services, there is high probability that the services perform as promised. We do this in part as the enterprisewide systems engineer and DoD executive agent for standards. Q: Can you provide some details on how DISA is solving these challenges? A: Regarding the systems-engineering process, DISA has applied significant attention and effort over the past three years to establish a standardized systems-engineering process, wherein the correct set of engineering and programmatic documents and subsequent technical reviews are accomplished in a thorough, consistent and repeatable manner. We have closely coordinated this effort with the DISA Office of the Component Acquisition Executive. In the area of skill-set development, we piloted the Technical Workforce Development Project [TWDP] in FY09. The TWDP contains a set of training courses arranged by technical areas to train and re-tool the work force. Example skill-set areas include TCP/IP, IA, SATCOM/wireless, optical transport, Web services and collaboration services. Curriculum choice and development is based upon coordination with a number of hightech companies and adoption of their training techniques. A key enabler for this effort is the use of Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs/wikis, to document progress and establish a collaborative learning environment and enduring knowledge base. Additionally, we leverage and integrate our extensive lab and modeling and simulation environment to provide the necessary hands-on training experience. Q: What new technologies are driving your technical skill sets? A: As we look to the future, a number of emerging technologies must be incorporated into the DISA portfolio. These include: • • •

• • •

New optical technology 40G and 100G Integration of carrier Ethernet Generalized Multi-protocol Label Switching and evolving Multi-protocol Label Switching and flow-routing technologies IP and optical encryption technologies Unified communications and collaboration within an IP environment Wi-Max and related wireless technologies

22 | MIT 13.9

• • •

Information assurance for IPv6 Cloud computing and virtualization Mash-ups and other Web 2.0 technologies.

This is just a partial list of what is required to evolve a knowledgeable and trained technical work force and keep pace with the needs of our customers in a net-centric environment. Q: What partnerships have you engaged in to accomplish your mission? A: Fundamentally, our engineering partnerships with other government organizations and with industry are focused on spurring innovation to be more effective and efficient in delivering IT capability. Chief Technology Officer [CTO] David Mihelcic drives innovation in DISA, and we work closely with him as he implements this strategy. We have established a number of key partnerships. First, we have implemented six Cooperative Research and Development Agreements [CRADAs] with industry partners. The CRADA focus areas range from open-source software development to advanced satellite communications architectures. We use these vehicles to gain insight into emerging technologies and how we can apply them to our missions. Another example is our working relationship with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA]. Specifically, we are performing lab evaluation of the DARPA “control plane” project, which examines flows in IP networks to improve performance when transporting voice, data and video. It is a radically different approach than the current queuing and routing of packets that is accomplished in traditional routers. These technologies are intriguing, especially in limited bandwidth environments experienced at the edges of the GIG. Q: To what extent are DISA engineering activities directed toward providing capability toward the edges of the network? A: Some examples are the Digital Video Broadcast-Return Channel Satellite [DVB-RCS] system; UHF Integrated Waveform; and our work to improve senior leadership executive aircraft communications. DVB-RCS is a SATCOM-based capability that provides significant bandwidth for unmanned aerial systems, SIPRNet access, and other critical applications in the CENTCOM AOR. Since DVB-RCS is based on commercial standards, the deployment was very rapid and is scalable to increase bandwidth quickly. The UHF Integrated Waveform [IW] is a DISA-developed improved UHF waveform that can more than triple the capacity of current UHF SATCOM channels, improves flexibility of carrying data and voice traffic, and significantly improves voice clarity. Recently, we successfully completed the initial operational demonstration for the first phase of the IW upgrade. Availability of the software for service fielding is planned for early 2010. Our work with senior leadership executive aircraft communications includes assessing performance of communications links that transit aerial and terrestrial layers. Clearly, airborne platforms are on the edge of the network, and identifying and resolving root-cause performance issues is very challenging. We have developed a prototype assessment tool, composed of COTS products that include simulation software, to help identify and solve www.MIT-kmi.com

performance problems. The M&S software allows us to look at the flight path and aircraft orientation [attitude, roll and heading] to determine if aircraft maneuvers or flight path may impact communications-link performance.

very excited about the potential benefits of this work and possible application of the capability into other critical areas such as cyberthreat reactions. Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Q: Can you provide additional comments on the innovation strategy? A: We have been using the Joint Concept Technology Demonstration [JCTD] process to help drive innovation. The DISA CTO orchestrates these efforts to identify, address and solve challenging problems. In the engineering directorate, we support the CTO and follow his lead. For example, commanders want the ability to quickly re-task the network to support changes in mission requirements or react to threats. In FY10, we will have a JCTD called Integrated SATCOM Operational Management [ISOM] that addresses this need. The premise is to use machineto-machine interactions via a policy-based management engine to accomplish this. ISOM takes advantage of the Joint IP SATCOM Modem [JIPM], a DISA-managed product development, which connects into the DISN for deployed reach-back networks from DoD teleports. ISOM collects situational awareness from the deployed network via the JIPM and then uses a policy engine to adjust bandwidth allocations. This will enable commanders to adjust network priorities in near real-time. Partners on this effort are MITRE, APL, JPL, STRATCOM and CENTCOM. We are

A: As we started this conversation, I indicated that DISA, and specifically DISA engineering, has changed dramatically over the past decade. Literally, we are at a unique point in time where the DISA mission and value to the DoD is growing rapidly. Whether it is developing solutions for enterprisewide technical issues or solving program-specific issues, our technical work force is postured to successfully meet these challenges. An added challenge is the agency’s BRAC move to Fort Meade, Md. We take this challenge very seriously and are working closely with our partners within DISA to ensure that we maintain our technical work force viability throughout the transition period. I am confident that we will minimize the impacts and continue to perform as a world-class provider of IT services to our DoD and national leadership users. ✯

Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. For more information related to this subject, search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.

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BY SCOTT R. GOURLEY MIT CORRESPONDENT GOURLEYS@KMIMEDIAGROUP.COM

DEMONSTRATION SHOWS INTEGRATION OF MODERNIZED

COMMUNICATION AND SITUATIONAL AWARENESS SYSTEMS.

The Army achieved a major milestone in its future networking equipment: to see if it’s reliable and to see if it will do all of the things capabilities late this summer with the start of limited user testing it needs to do. (LUT) of the Early-Infantry Brigade Combat Team initial capabilities “Just about everyone here has a cell phone and understands that it package by elements of the Army Evaluation Task Force (AETF). is operating on a network,” he said. “And what we’re trying to do out The LUT, held at White Sands, N.M., represented a critical followhere is to test the network. That ‘network piece’ is the hardest part to on to the June acquisition decision memorandum that canceled show someone who is coming out here, but that is what’s really being the manned ground vehicle elements of the Army’s Future Combat tested. We have [unmanned aerial systems] variants in theater right System (FCS), while simultaneously directing the Army to transinow. We also have robot variants that are in theater. But they are not tion to a modernization plan consisting of a number of separate but all tied to a network.” integrated acquisition programs. Those integrated programs include MULTIPLE WAVEFORMS one to spin out the initial increment of the FCS program to seven infantry brigades in the near term, as well as additional programs for A key to tying all of the equipment together is the NIK, which proinformation and communications networks, unmanned ground and vides the introduction of the FCS network and fusion of current force air vehicles and sensors, and an integration effort aimed at follow-on capability with the future force. The NIK integrates a spinouts to all Army brigades. Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) software programThe network testing encompassed by the monthmable Ground Mobile Radio (GMR) running multiple long LUT comes on the heels of earlier tests conducted waveforms with an FCS Integrated Computer System with that developing system. (See “Future Network and FBCB2 computer to provide greatly enhanced Testing,” MIT 2009 Volume 13, Issue 4.) situational awareness. The initial capabilities package tested in the LUT Along with that hardware, which is integrated into included tactical unattended ground sensors (T-UGS), the rear of a combat vehicle equipped with multiband urban unattended ground sensors (U-UGS), the nonantennas (HMMWVs were used for the LUT), additional line-of-sight launch system (NLOS-LS), class 1 UAV elements include a range extension relay, to extend the Block 0, small unmanned ground vehicle block 1, and range of the JTRS handheld, manpack, small form fit a network integration kit (NIK). (HMS)—running the Soldier Radio Waveform—that The AETF, designated 5th Brigade, 1st Armored Lt. Col. Luke Peterson transmits data from the T-UGS to the NIK. Division, provided both blue force and red force par“That NIK vehicle basically operates like a laptop ticipants for the LUT, with blue force elements coming with an ‘air card,’” Cervantes observed. “The air cards essentially tie from the brigade’s 2nd Combined Arms Battalion (CAB) while red the laptop into a network, where I can send a picture from a cell force participants were drawn from the 1 CAB. phone to a laptop, so that that individual can see the picture and make Blue Force structure for LUT was centered on 2 CAB’s “Charlie decisions from that picture in real-time.” Company,” supported by a reconnaissance platoon from 2 CAB batLieutenant Colonel Luke Peterson, product manager for network talion headquarters as well as the NLOS-LS fire unit that would systems, provided an overview of the specific network architecture normally be located within the fires battalion assigned to the AETF/ employed at LUT. brigade headquarters. “It comprises two different kinds of network integration kits: “It’s not the soldiers that are being tested out here, it’s the equipseven pre-engineering development model [EDM] GMRs as well ment,” explained Captain Marc Cervantes, assistant product manager as three engineering development models of GMRs,” he said. for capabilities integration. “The soldiers are helping us test this 24 | MIT 13.9

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“And everything is working with the satellite layer called blue force tracker, which is the current force system deployed today. And what that tells you is that FCS technologies are operating with current force systems to give us both terrestrial network capabilities and satellite network capabilities.” The pre-EDM GMRs were running four waveforms for the LUT: Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW) 3.1, Soldier Radio Waveform 0.5, and two channels of SINCGARS. The EDM radios ran three waveforms: WNW 3.6 and two channels of SINCGARS (Network planners noted that the EDM, pre-EDM and SINCGARS are interoperable in the SC/PT mode). Under the LUT network umbrella, soldiers from the AETF tested early models of both T-UGS and U-UGS unattended sensors as well as unmanned ground and air systems. “Those are intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance nodes on the network that provide situational awareness to the soldiers through the network integration kits and disseminate that awareness out to the rest of the formation,” Peterson said. “What happens is that they collect data and imagery on enemy movements and enemy formations that is then passed into the network. And, once it goes through a gateway into a network integration kit, it is disseminated throughout the rest of the force, all the way from the lowest echelon up to the battalion and brigade tactical operations centers.” Peterson noted the location of the pre-EDM GMR and associated power amplifiers in the rear of one of seven participating pre-EDM NIKs. “There are four channels,” he said. “They are using SINCGARS

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26 | MIT 13.9

for voice, with two channels using SINCGARS. They also use the Soldier Radio Waveform, which is the key for bringing all of the imagery and data into the NIK. The systems send their data into the NIK through the Soldier Radio Waveform. That information is then processed through the Integrated Computer System, which is integrated and then sent forward for the soldier to manipulate on a screen in the front of the cab.” In the front of the vehicle, that manipulation of data is conducted with the assistance of the FCS battle command software running on the Integrated Computer System. “The soldier then takes that imagery and that data and does what we call a spot report, and then is ready to send that out, throughout the rest of the formation, over the Wideband Networking Waveform. And ‘wideband’ means exactly that. It’s got a wide band with a big enough pipe to handle passing those images throughout the rest of the formation out of the battlefield. Those are the four channels that the [pre-EDMs] have today for the LUT.” The remaining three NIKs, which featured early introduction of the EDM GMRs, were used in a network environment linking the weapons company commander, battalion commander, and battalion S-3 via WNW 3.6, and linking that node to the rest of the LUT network architecture via SINCGARS.

FUTURE ARCHITECTURE Moreover, the entire “future force” architecture is covered by Blue Force Tracker, which enables interoperability with current force architectures. “We currently populate screens with icons marking friendly locations, enemy locations and so on,” Peterson said. “Blue Force Tracker helps disseminate that information or battle space object—think of an icon—to both the NIK vehicles as well as the non-NIK vehicles that are within a unit formation.” The Army’s product manager emphasized that the NIK is not HMMWV platform-specific, adding that the capability “can be integrated onto other platforms as we continue to mature the design.” Any future maturation of that design will certainly reflect the findings and observations derived through the LUT, which was scheduled to run through late September. In addition to the participating AETF members, more than 250 Army personnel, Department of the Army civilians, and contractors from the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) are independently monitoring every aspect of LUT operations, preparing an abbreviated test report, and collecting and processing mountains of data to help feed a subsequent assessment report. As the independent evaluators, ATEC will lead the post-LUT assessment process, supported by Army TRADOC and program management representatives. The net result should be a report recommending a path to take concerning the elements within the initial capabilities package. Current plans call for a Milestone C decision on the package in December, to be followed by additional test and evaluation milestones. Longer-range brigade combat team modernization plans call for the initial capabilities package to be fielded to the first seven teams by 2014. ✯

Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. For more information related to this subject, search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.

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OUTGOING CHIEF OF DOD INFORMATION SECURITY REFLECTS ON TENURE AND CALLS FOR NEW PATH FOCUSED ON AUTOMATED SYSTEMS. BY ROBERT LENTZ Warfighters can’t fight battles without trustworthy information. Everyday business functions are stymied when information is unavailable or when there are serious doubts as to the reliability of the information. In the Department of Defense, as is the case in the business world and across the rest of the federal government, mission success relies Robert Lentz on access to timely and trustworthy information. This means that the information residing on our networks needs to be protected and defended against the ever-present threat of probes and scans. There are millions of targeted scans on the DoD’s Global Information Grid every single day, and the threat is coming from adversaries and hackers. www.MIT-kmi.com

Information is at the center of network-centric operations. It is critical to our mission that defense information systems not be brought down by cyber-attack. It is crucial that we have freedom of action in cyberspace. If we can’t trust the information we rely on, it can greatly impact our success on the battlefield. The issue is so important that John Grimes, then the DoD chief information officer, created the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber, Identity and Information Assurance (DASD-CIIA) in 2008 to operationalize informationcentric concepts. This office, which I have headed, was created to increase the profile of our mission, which is to protect our information assets and to give warfighters the ability to access and share information as needed. Since the stand-up of the DASD-CIIA, we have made many accomplishments in the cybersecurity arena. We have deployed the largest public-key infrastructure in the world. We established the Unified Cross Domain Management Office (UCDMO), a joint office created by the CIOs for DoD and the Office of the Director MIT 13.9 | 27

of National Intelligence to address the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness resulting from years of uncoordinated activities in the cross domain arena. UCDMO’s goal is to push seamless information sharing throughout a diverse user community across a wide variety of security domains that handle both classified and unclassified information. We have grown the DoD information assurance budget from $1 billion a year to now over $3 billion.

STRONG PARTNERSHIPS We have also improved IA education and training and have increased our partnerships with the Department of Homeland Security, private industry, and the global defense industrial base (DIB). We established a strong partnership with the DIB to increase network security, as well as put in place a robust model of threat and vulnerability sharing that extends to all critical sectors. We established the intergovernmental Data at Rest Tiger Team (DARTT), which creates policies and acquisition vehicles to secure sensitive government data and personally identifiable information. The DARTT has developed an unprecedented and rapid acquisition process in support of government requirements, including the competitive awarding of multiple blanket purchase agreements that can be used by all U.S. government agencies (federal, state and local) and NATO. Under the DARTT BPAs, government agencies have saved more than $100 million in encryption licenses since July 2007. We also launched the Defense Venture Catalyst Initiative, a program that brought cutting-edge technology innovation to the national security community right after September 11, 2001, enabling agencies to solve many hard challenges. But our work is far from finished. Although we have accomplished a lot, there is much work left to do. If I had to list five of the biggest challenges that remain, my list would be: •

•

The need to continuously harden the network, in this era of social networking, cloud services, and increased mobile work force and growing global requirements. The need to move to multi-factor and attribute-based identity assurance access for people, devices, data and applications. The whole area of supply chain risk management. As the threat changes, we need to adjust as well, which includes rolling out technologies that inspect and secure the supply chain. Raising awareness across DoD and greater national security community on cyber-resilience, so that commanders are prepared to operate in a contested cyberdomain when communications are degraded—or worse, untrusted. The increased complexity of our technologies, coupled by our even greater dependence on them for mission success, makes this an imperative. Continuing to stress the importance and necessity of education, training and workforce manning for critical IT/IA skill sets.

NEW STRATEGY Since 2004, when DoD issued its first information assurance strategy, much has changed. We have witnessed a stark increase in both the cyberthreat and the sophistication of the enemy to penetrate our mission-critical systems. To help combat the threat, my office recently implemented a new information strategy that lays out our vision and goals for cyber, identity and information assurance. In short, we must become more agile. Although training and education of our work force is vital, eventually we must begin to take people out of the mix and move toward an automated security system platform where devices can recognize a threat and respond more quickly and efficiently than humans. We have to improve the time it takes to roll out commercial technologies. We can no longer afford to wait three, four or five years to put capabilities out on the battlefield. The direction we’re headed is to integrate information assurance in the preMilestone A design phase of weapons platforms. The bottom line is that we have to emphasize IA in the design phase, or otherwise we will have to pay a tremendous amount of money later on to fix programs. Even worse, we’ll find ourselves more vulnerable to attack. We must trod a new path, one that focuses on automating security systems that rely less on systems engineers detecting intrusions and installing security patches. Now that I have retired from my role as the DASD-CIIA and the department’s chief information security officer, I leave both proud of our accomplishments in raising the profile and mission of cybersecurity across the department, and confident that remaining challenges will be addressed to deal with the current cyberthreat. I like to use the analogy of the automobile back in the 1960s and before. Back then, there was hardly any safety built into cars. But today safety features come standard in vehicles—from seatbelts and shatter-proof glass to anti-lock brakes and airbags. The automobiles of an earlier era resemble DoD’s information systems prior to all of the security layers. We had no security before. In fact, it was like the Wild West. But with the advent of the Internet, our industry was forced to change. Today, we anticipate scans and attacks and have adjusted our approach more toward keeping our mission-critical systems up and operating in the midst of these attacks. Layered security is enabling us to do this. Tomorrow, we will rely less on a static, stand-alone information assurance environment and move toward a cyber-information assurance realm. DoD must include time and environmental considerations into its security measures to address the rapid pace of the threat and to topple our adversaries. We simply must be faster, more agile and better prepared. We’re headed in the right direction. ✯

Robert Lentz retired recently as deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber, identity and information assurance.

Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. For more information related to this subject, search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.

28 | MIT 13.9

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INDUSTRY CONSORTIUM, DEFENSE AGENCY JOIN IN QUEST FOR INTEROPERABILITY VIA NETWORK-CENTRIC OPERATIONS. (Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of updates from the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC), an organization dedicated to network-centric operations (NCO) and the interoperability that NCO can bring to its customers. See MIT, September 2009, Volume 13 Issue 8, page 38.) The relationship between NCOIC and O’Berry outlined his vision of an organithe Defense Information Systems Agency zation that would advance global interoper(DISA), which goes back to the earliest days ability and enable industry to produce better of the organization as an idea in the minds results for the government. The idea, he of its founders, has flourished and brought explained, was that companies would agree important benefits to both organizations. It on network-centric standards and protocols, continues today via an expanded partnership but continue to compete on the applications with the agency’s parent, the Office of the and capabilities. They would share their ideas Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and come to consensus without giving away and Information Integration/Department company secrets. of Defense Chief Information Officer (ASD Raduege expressed interest in the idea, (NII)/DoD CIO), which now serves as the especially if it would spare government acquiportal for DoD’s involvement in NCOIC’s sition communities the horror of proprietary work. software and new capabilities NCOIC incorporated in that do not interoperate propthe fall of 2004, with Boeing’s erly with current capabilities. Carl O’Berry as its founding Using open standards and chairman. Leading up to that protocols, he suggested, could legal move, however, there reduce the cost of delivering had been an extensive series things to government activiof discussions that explored ties unable to fully describe government’s desire to forge what they really wanted from a novel relationship with industry. industry. It also tested indusEven in those early days, Carl O’Berry try’s willingness to shed traRaduege and O’Berry shared a ditional competitor roles so vision of a strong industry allithat, working in concert, companies could ance that would advance NCO by identifying reach consensus about creating interoperappropriate standards and developing tools, ability solutions for customers. interfaces and protocols to support them. One of these landmark conversations Even then they foresaw NCOIC’s ultimate occurred in 2003, during a meeting between goal: that procurement agencies would one O’Berry and DISA Director Lieutenant Genday include NCOIC’s open, net-centric solueral Harry Raduege. In the process of pulstions in their requirements. ing government leaders for opinions about So began the formative DISA-NCOIC the potential value of an industry consorcollaboration. And, in 2006, Raduege retired tium dedicated to NCO, O’Berry arrived at from the Air Force, joined Deloitte TouRaduege’s office with four charts and a vision che and became NCOIC’s Executive Council about network-centric operations. But it chairman. turned out Raduege also had four charts, DISA’S VIEW TODAY and his own vision about improving DISA’s acquisition process, systems engineering, As a DoD combat support agency, DISA communication and DoD-wide enterprise is responsible for planning, engineering, network services. As the men swapped charts acquiring, fielding and supporting global their thoughts converged and their visions net-centric solutions to serve the needs of intersected. 30 | MIT 13.9

the president, vice president, the secretary of defense, combatant commanders, and other DoD components, under all conditions of peace and war. In support of ASD (NII)/ DoD CIO’s information technology activities, DISA seeks the coherent integration of military capabilities with other elements of national and allied power. DISA envisions that collective engagement with NCOIC will help the agency to: •

• •

•

Advance DISA’s combat support mission in a wide range of current and emerging areas Inform DoD’s requirements for netcentric operations Identify and stimulate industry’s support of technologies and standards that are, or should be, developed by commercial or nongovernmental standards bodies Benefit from industry’s tools and technology forecasts for future capabilities Harvest industry’s advice about enhancing military operations, now and in the future.

In the spring of 2007, DISA entered into a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with NCOIC. The purpose was to enhance understanding, development and refinement of network centric operations principles and practices that closely touch both organizations’ interests and missions. “DISA is designated as DoD’s executive agent for information technology standards,” said Dave Brown, DISA Standards Engineering branch chief. “We use CRADAs as mechanisms to permit us to work more closely with industry organizations such as NCOIC, and to share information and intellectual property that facilitates consistent understanding of military net-centric operational and technical requirements.” www.MIT-kmi.com

Timeline of NCOIC Collaboration with DISA/DoD/NII 2004

DISA Director Raduege gives guidance about, supports the formation, and becomes a member of NCOIC’s Advisory Council (AC). DISA becomes an NCOIC member.

2006

Ongoing representation—DISA Director Croom joins NCOIC AC. John Grimes, ASD (NII)/DoD CIO, joins NCOIC’s Advisory Council.

2007

DISA establishes CRADA with NCOIC. DISA transfers membership to ASD (NII)/DoD CIO. The membership becomes a portal for all DoD to participate in NCOIC. DISA and NCOIC jointly address IPv6 applications; NCOIC delivers results of invited review to DISA.

2008

DISA, NCOIC collaborate on Standards Management Framework and Reference Implementation Model through the consortium’s Open Standards Working Group (OSWG). ASD (NII)/DoD and NCOIC collaborate on Net Centric Attributes, initially under the OSWG, and later under the NCA FT. DoD’s Jack Zavin becomes vice chairman of NCOIC’s NCA FT.

2009

ASD (NII)/DoD CIO, DISA and NCOIC launch collaboration on cloud computing. Deloitte, through Raduege, now chairman of its Center for Cyber Innovation, becomes executive co-sponsor of NCOIC’s Cyber Security IPT, along with John Osterholz of BAE Systems.

Under the CRADA, NCOIC members Computing Environment, GIG Content have access to certain government informaDelivery Service, and other DISA cloud tion, but can use it only within the context computing efforts, to industry’s work on of its Technical Council and functional cloud computing standards. teams’ activities. “We have seen good For example, NCOIC’s progress in NCOIC’s CRADA Cloud Computing Working work on our standards and Group leverages the CRADA attributes tasks,” said Brown. as a vehicle for collaboration “That work paves the way on the development of new for validating some standards cloud computing capability profiling that we’ve develpatterns. oped as technical guidance The effort was launched for the Global Information during NCOIC’s September Grid [GIG] capabilities.” 2009 plenary meeting durDave Brown NET-CENTRIC CHECKLIST ing briefings by Henry Sienkiewicz of DISA’s Computing DoD CIO John Stenbit Services Division and Rob developed and promulgated Vietmeyer, DISA’s Forge.mil a “net-centric checklist” in project director, according 2004. He believed that the to Kevin Jackson, vice presiGIG should exhibit attrident of DataLine and leader butes that aligned with its of NCOIC’s cloud computing four essential elements— workshop. transport, data, services and Future NCOIC cloud information assurance. Sepacomputing endeavors will rately, DoD developed an inicorrelate lessons learned Kevin Jackson tial version of “net-centric from the Rapid Access www.MIT-kmi.com

attributes” to guide investments. The attributes evolved further and were made public in 2007. An attribute is a quality or feature regarded as an inherent part of someone or something. So, a net-centric attribute is one that supports the principles of NCO. Explicitness—an entity’s characteristic of exposing all information about itself, without prior assumptions—is one example of a net-centric attribute. The goodness of attributes is that they can be measured to gauge net-centric behavior. NCOIC’s work on attributes originated when the organization adopted DoD’s Net-Centric Checklist as the foundation of its original Network Centric Analysis Tool (NCAT), which developers now use to measure net-centricity in their products and systems. Over the years, NCAT has evolved and expanded to include sub-sets that reflect the special needs of NATO and the Australian military. “NCOIC’s Network Centric Attributes Functional Team [NCA FT] is now reviewing the net-centric attributes document at DoD’s invitation and under the DISA CRADA,” said Jack Zavin, an associate MIT 13.9 | 31

director in the Office of the ASD (NII)/DoD CIO and vice chair of the NCA FT. NCOIC will re-baseline the 2007 attributes list to determine whether it remains relevant and valid. NCA FT members will address questions such as: are the elements correctly identified; are the original suppositions still on target; how can they evolve over time; and how can they improve system performance, cost and delivery speed? Based on its findings, the consortium will deliver “voice of industry” recommendations to the U.S. DoD.

customers can determine how much netcentricity they need, and measure the level of net-centricity that they have,” said Polzer, Lockheed Martin fellow and NCA FT chair. “NCAT 3 can help them determine whether they got the requirements right, assess how well their design met those requirements and inform their selection of attributes for their specific context.” Polzer went on to say that NCAT attributes are oriented toward design and implementation, whereas SCOPE attributes are more focused on operations and

CRADA Goals Through the CRADA, DISA and NCOIC aspire to: •

•

Accelerate and increase levels of interoperability in a net-centric environment—within and among all levels of U.S. government and allies involved in joint, interagency and multinational operations. Provide a network-centric environment where all classes of information systems interoperate by integrating open standards into a common global framework that employs a common set of principles and processes. Develop a disciplined, practical approach to developing and executing: — net-centric implementations — joint experimentation — transformational technologies and processes — meaningful measures of net-centric effectiveness — identification of best practices and procedures.

Current CRADA work engages NCOIC in developing a Standards Management Framework and Reference Implementation Model. Executed through NCOIC’s Open Standards Working Group, industry will share perspectives on standards that impact DoD’s IT standards management processes. The framework/model will allow NCOIC to prescribe standards to guide the development of net-centric interoperability solutions. The expectation is that DoD groups may use NCOIC’s products.

be appropriate to a system’s operational effectiveness measures, not to its degree of net-centricity, per se. • To determine which net-centric attributes are germane to a particular system: a. Ask yourself the 20 questions that the NCAT Working Group has developed to help identify which of NCAT’s 300 questions are most relevant to your system. b. Know that NCAT 3’s questions are now organized in flexible hierarchical categories. They can have multiple answers and can capture extensive comments/rationale. This allows the tool to be used in a workshop setting. • Enhanced NCAT 3 gives users new flexibility in selecting questions for their evaluation. Also, users can add new questions or new domaindependent questions appropriate to their operational domain. This enables them to extend the set of net-centric attributes and contribute new attributes to the community. Organizations are urged to begin with three steps: •

•

• In terms of obtaining meaningful industry input, Zavin believes that NCOIC has four characteristics that taken together make the organization unique. It is solely dedicated to NCO and interoperability; has a global membership that generates an international discussion; is vendor neutral; and has a cadre of technical experts available to do its work. In these respects, Zavin believes, DoD collaboration with NCOIC’s subject matter experts delivers value beyond the cost of its membership dues. NCOIC subject matter expert Hans Polzer recently offered his “Net-centric Attributes 101.” “NCOIC is merging the SCOPE model attributes into NCAT 3 content so that 32 | MIT 13.9

requirements scope. He advised developers to apply SCOPE at the requirements definition stage and set target NCAT attribute values after the requirements are established. “You want to use a tool like NCAT to allow flexible tailoring of attributes to specific program types and contexts,” said Polzer.

ATTRIBUTE SELECTION In selecting attributes, NCOIC experts emphasize the following factors: •

Selecting appropriate net-centric attributes depends on a particular system’s problem domain and its operational scope. Attributes need to

Recognize that the definition of netcentricity differs from one organization to another—from Australia to NATO to the U.S., and even within and among its federal agencies. Select attributes based on how netcentricity can provide optimal benefits for the specific capability in question. Here the term “optimal” requires a customer’s value judgment. Participate in an NCAT/ SCOPE workshop, or engage with an NCOIC integrated project team.

NCOIC invites global government and industry representatives to join its quest for interoperability via network-centric operations. To learn more about engagement in NCOIC’s technical and working groups, contact hans.w.polzer@lmco.com or nicolas.berthet@fr.thalesgroup.com; for cloud computing, kevin.jackson@dataline.com; for the CRADA, sheryl.sizelove@ boeing.com. ✯ Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. For more information related to this subject, search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.

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Battery System Enables Continuous System Operation A new battery system for the Guardian Military handheld computer from Industrial Computing enables continuous system operation. The fourposition smart charging station, combined with the PDA’s hot-swap battery, keeps the Guardian system fully available. The multi-position charging station keeps up to four batteries fully charged. Charging time is three hours compared to the use cycle of five hours. Therefore a single charging station can keep several Guardian PDAs functioning continuously. The Guardian Military PDA handheld form factor meets MIL-STD-801F and MIL-STD-461E specifications for shock, vibration and electromagnetic interference. Built to take a five foot drop onto concrete and sealed to IP-67, the Windows Mobile or CE based system can be adapted to a wide range of applications.

Media Destroyer Shreds Optical Disks, Other Items The Model 0201OMD Optical Media Destroyer from Security Engineered Machinery shreds CDs, DVDs, credit cards, ID badges, access cards, and similar items, reducing them to tiny particles and satisfying the requirements of NSA/CSS 04-02. The Optical Media Destroyer can destroy up to 2,500 disks per hour. The throat, specially designed to accept optical media, is 12.25 inches wide. Ergonomic photoelectric controls provide for hands-free start and stop; the cutters are activated by the introduction of discs and are automatically shut off seconds later when the material is destroyed. If the door of the machine is open or the bag inside is full, the cutting head will not operate and an indicator light will signal the problem. The large 30-gallon waste collection bin is constructed of anti-static material to prevent particles from clinging to it when emptying. The Model 0201 features the exclusive Energy Savings Mode, which powers down the unit after prolonged periods of inactivity, and also the Electronic Capacity Control, which provides a visual indication of infeed capacity being utilized, to help prevent overfeeding and paper jams.

34 | MIT 13.9

Tactical Radio Enables Coalition Interoperability Harris has received certification from the National Security Agency (NSA) for the Harris RF-310M-HH, the world’s first tactical radio to utilize new encryption technology designed to simplify the enabling of communications interoperability within multinational coalitions. Harris and NSA collaborated on the new technology, which is based on a set of commercial algorithms and keying techniques defined as “Suite B.” The Harris RF-310M-HH is a multiband, multi-mission, software-defined Suite B radio certified to transmit voice and data up to the U.S. Secret level. The objective of the Harris/NSA joint project is to make it easier for U.S. forces and coalition partners to communicate on the battlefield, resulting in improved coordination, easier mission planning and reduced instances of friendly fire. These radios will be commercially available to coalition partners with limited restrictions and will enable secure communications with U.S. troops using other equipment such as the JTRS-approved Falcon III AN/ PRC-152(C) handheld and AN/PRC-117G manpack radios. The RF-310M-HH has also been submitted to NATO’s Military Committee Communications and Information Systems Security and Evaluation Agency for NATO Secret traffic certification.

Long Cases Offer Versatile Shipping To meet the demand for long, deep and versatile shipping cases, Pelican Products has introduced the 1740 and 1770 Long Cases. For easy one-person transport, the 1740 comes standard with several mobile-friendly features including two rugged double-wide handles for easy steering and team lifting. Wide-track, polyurethane wheels (for stable mobility) with ball bearings and nylon hubs ensure extended towing durability. Designed to either be moved manually or stacked on pallets, the 1740 features four extra-deep base-to-lid locking cleats that ensure maximum stacking stability. Built for longer equipment and weapons such as .50-caliber guns and survey drill kits, the 1770 Long Case is Pelican’s longest case to date with a length of 54.58 inches. It features the same transit friendly attributes as the 1740. Both cases feature an open cell core, polymer wall construction engineered to protect sensitive equipment from some of the harshest conditions on Earth. Additional standard features include a lid equipped with a polymer o-ring for a dust and water tight seal and six dual action latches that have been tested to withstand nearly 400 pounds of pulling force (but open with a light pull).

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The advertisers index is provided as a service to our readers. KMI cannot be held responsible for discrepancies due to last-minute changes or alterations.

MI T CALEND A R & DI REC TO RY ADVERTISERS INDEX Americom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 www.americom-gs.com CapRock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 www.caprock.com Cases2Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 www.cases2go.com GDC4 Needham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 www.gdc4s.com/viper GDC4 Scottsdale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 www.gdc4s.com/riﬂemanradio GDC4 Taunton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 www.gdc4s.com Harris RF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 www.jtrs.com Inmarsat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 www.inmarsat.com/government ITT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 www.ittsystems.com L-3 East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C4 www.l-3com.com/ste L-3 Linkabit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C2 www.l-3com.com NCW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 www.ncwevent.com QinetiQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 www.qinetiq-na.com/getsecure Rockwell Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 www.rockwellcollins.com/milsatcom SafeNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C3 www.safenet-inc.com/government Segovia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 www.segoviaip.com Ultra Electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 www.ultra-dne.com/change

NEXTISSUE Cover and In-Depth Interview with:

Rear Admiral John W. Goodwin Assistant Chief of Naval Operations Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN)

DISA Insert

Features:

Dynamic Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C4 www.sstew.com

BGAN Bonanza

Xtar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C2 www.xtarllc.com

A variety of new products cts and service services es es are available to take advantage dvantage of the hee communications capabilities bilities available through Inmarsat’s Broadband adband Global Area Network (BGAN) satellites. atellites.

CALENDAR

Raising CANES

Northrop Grumman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 www.northropgrumman.com/cybersecurity

October 20-22, 2009 InfoTech 2009 Dayton, Ohio www.afcea-infotech.org October 27-29, 2009 DCGS Worldwide Conference and Expo Virginia Beach, Va. www.ncsi.com October 29-30, 2009 TechNet International Brussels, Belgium www.afcea.org

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November 2-5, 2009 TechNet Asia-Paciﬁc Honolulu, Hawaii www.afcea.org November 4, 2009 Adobe Government Assembly Washington, D.C. www.adobegovernmentassembly. com December 15-17, 2009 Intelligence Warﬁghting Summit Tucson, Ariz. www.ncsi.com

November 2009 Volume 13, Issue 10

A number of industry teams eams are pursuing the competitive contract ct for the U.S. Navy’s Consolidated Afl float oat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) ANES) program.

Intrusion Detection ction Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command has implemented innovative measures in the field of network intrusion detection.

Homefront Comms Telecommunications company programs enabling deployed warfighters to talk with their loved ones not only are good public relations, but also demonstrate cutting-edge technology.

Encryption Technology Joint Forces Command is experimenting with a cryptographic technology aimed at enabling virtualized communities of interest to coexist, while still maintaining complete isolation from each other.

Closing Deadline

November 9, 2009 MIT 13.9 | 35

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW

MILITARY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch President Inmarsat Government Services Q: What do you see as the biggest potential growth driver in government demand for mobile satellite services?

Q: How do you see the U.S. government changing how it purchases commercial SATCOM?

A: The most significant growth driver for mobile SATCOM access is the change in warfare toward more unconventional operations. We are seeing fewer troops deployed, but they have significantly greater mobility and disconnected operations. Inmarsat’s converged IP voice and data on the Broadband Global Area Network [BGAN] supplies full network connectivity to units needing agile comms-on-the-move. This equipment travels with them, whether on mobile platforms or with the dismounted soldier. With net-centric operations, there is also an increased reliance on access to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, which similarly drives the growth of mobile SATCOM. Greater mobility, a smaller number of troops and a significant reliance on situational awareness require different applications, all of which Inmarsat provides across its secure IPbased network. Another factor driving mobile SATCOM growth is that civil governments now want the same type of situational awareness and security that the military expects. The fires in California are a good example of how fire-and-rescue and other first-responders have an increased reliance on mobile satellite services. When network and landlines are down for any reason, commercial and mobile SATCOM provides real-time data at the very front of a fire brigade, providing real-time mapping or other vital information to aid the fire and rescue response. Civil governments can now have the same level of communications for security, rapid response, and disaster preparedness that the military has enjoyed for years.

A: The Department of Defense has undertaken a number of reviews over the past years and is now in the midst of the Space Posture Review [SPR]. Among other areas of focus, it will examine increased partnerships with the commercial satellite industry as well as the international space community. I see this as a very positive step forward and a significant example of how DoD is exploring ways to make real the latest iteration of the Transformational Communication Architecture [TCA v 3], which actually incorporates commercial SATCOM as a critical element. All indications are that the department and the government in general are looking at stronger relationships with commercial satellite operators across the board. This is not unprecedented in the international defense arena, whether it’s the Paradigm relationship with the U.K. Ministry of Defence or other partnerships around the globe. If DoD comes forward with something that is very progressive as a result of this SPR, the satellite communications acquisition strategy will need to change to implement the policy. I do not see the connection today. This change in policy will require the associated funding strategy for commercial SATCOM. Will DoD intentionally plan, program and fund for this critical enabler of today’s operations, or will it continue to leverage, in its existing ad hoc fashion, supplemental funds that will not be available to them for several years? It is fundamentally important as we go forward that DoD establish a coherent policy and direction for commercial SATCOM, fund accordingly, and have an aligned acquisition strategy. These elements must come together rapidly to ensure the warfighters have the requisite SATCOM capabilities essential to execute the mission. ✯

Q: How will the changing nature of military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan affect Inmarsat’s business? A: The gradual withdrawal of troops from Iraq has changed the profile of utilization. 36 | MIT 13.9

Combatant commanders have traded boots on the ground for eyes in the sky. There is shift in the profile of users, in part because Iraq has become more dependent on fibre networks and fixed satellite services. In Afghanistan, we are seeing a significant take-up of our service across the entire coalition, both because of the geographic scope of Afghanistan and because of significant mobile operations. Afghanistan has a different operational profile than Iraq and has an increased presence of special ops and small unit forces across a broad geographic area. These units across the coalition are heavily reliant on secure BGAN capabilities. Q: How do you see increased competition in mobile SATCOM impacting Inmarsat’s government business? A: While we do see a number of regional mobile satellite providers that may provide a level of mobile satellite services, there is no other service provider that provides the same gold standard of reliability, assurance and consistency that we offer at Inmarsat. Our Inmarsat-4 constellation, with its wide range of converged IP network services, is providing tomorrow’s IP technology today on a network that is readily available, completely funded, and fully reliable. There may be other MSS satellite operators, no question. But there is also only one Inmarsat, providing superior quality of service that our broad range of customers have enjoyed for over 30 years.

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