Network Unifier Maj. Gen. Susan S. Lawrence - KMI Media Group

The Voice of Military Communications and Computing
Network
Unifier
Maj. Gen.
Susan S.
Lawrence
Commanding
General
Army NETCOM
9th SC (A)
PRSRT STD
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
ROCKVILLE, MD
PERMIT # 2669
www.MIT-kmi.com
C4ISR
September 2009
Volume 13, Issue 8
Satellite Phones ✯ Domain Name Security ✯ NCOIC ✯ 3G Technology
Air Mobility Command ✯ C2 Transformation ✯ Software as a Service ✯ Cybermetrics

MILITARY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
SEPTEMBER 2009
VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 8
FEATURES COVER / Q&A
6
11
16
18
30
34
37
38
Networks in the Sky
Rapidly evolving from its first incarnations, satellite phone
technology is becoming embedded in every part of military life from
the foxhole to the Internet cafe.
By Adam Baddeley
3G and Beyond
Cellular communications technologies now in their latest 3G and
4G iterations are being tested, evaluated and packaged for urgent
operational needs in the current fight and integrated in critical
programs both on and off the battlefield.
By Adam Baddeley
Digital Technology for Small Unit Leaders
In order to leverage the potential of networked information, small
unit leaders need greater bandwidth connecting them to a secure
network.
By Colonel Buddy Carman and Mike Kelley
Putting the IT in “Mobility”
The Directorate of Communications supports Air Mobility Command
by providing integrated, reliable and secure communications
and information, and providing services and policy for managing
information as a strategic resource.
Domain Name Security
A new mandate for defense and other federal agencies is focusing
attention on the security of the Internet’s Domain Name System—
the vital “telephone book” that looks up the IP addresses of
Websites.
By Peter Buxbaum
Servings of Software
Information technology vendors providing software as a service are
attracting growing revenues, as well as increasing interest from
military organizations.
By Peter Buxbaum
Outcome-Based Metrics
It is vital that the government develop processes by which
to measure performance and outcomes associated with its
cybersecurity efforts.
By Scott Charbo
Network-Centric Consensus
The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) is a
global not-for-profit association dedicated to the advancement of
network-centric operations and the benefits of interoperability.
25
Major General Susan S. Lawrence
Commanding General
Army Network Enterprise
Technology Command
9th Signal Command (Army)
DEPARTMENTS
2
4
4
20
22
42
43
Editor’s Perspective
Program Notes
People
JTRS Update
Data Bytes
COTSacopia
Calendar, Directory
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
44
Simon Lee
Chief Executive Officer
STG Inc.

MILITARY INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
VOLUME 13, ISSUE 8 SEPTEMBER 2009
The Voice of Military Communications
and Computing
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Sometimes, the questions can be at least as telling as the answers.
At the Army LandWarNet conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., this
summer, for example, one of the plenary sessions featured a number of
executives from companies involved in Army information technology.
What was especially interesting was that session organizers took the time
to ask staff members in the Army Chief Information Office/G-6 what
questions they would most like to ask industry. The questions were:
•
•
•
•
•
•
How could industry support the requirement to take modular capa-
bilities and deploy them anywhere, with immediate connectivity and
access to network-delivered capabilities, without the need to modify
systems or configurations? How would industry create an environment
that supports the “fight on arrival” imperative, global plug and play, and train as we fight?
What is industry’s role in achieving the Army’s thrust to integrate generating and operating force
into one cohesive force in support of total joint requirements, and what is needed from the Army
to make this a reality?
From what you know of the Army infostructure today, what three areas should the Army focus
on—why and how?
What lessons learned or areas of improvement—IT, communications, information assurance or
network management—have come from overseas contingency operations? What specific areas can
the government partner with industry to better support joint warfighters?
The Army fights today in a coalition construct, which presents challenges within the U.S. military,
and even more without international partners. What is U.S. industry doing to bridge this gap?
In an era of increasing demand for new technology and flat or
decreasing IT budgets, what approaches should the Department
of Defense take to keep pace with the rate of technology change?
While the answers given by industry executives on the panel
were good, the questions themselves provided valuable insight into
what’s on the minds of those creating the Global Network Enterprise
Construct.
SOF Leader
Admiral Eric
T. Olson
Commander
USSOCOM
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Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Advanced Aperture System Offers “Superhero” Vision
Over the past year, a group from the
Army RDECOM CERDEC Night Vision and
Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD) has
been working on the Advanced Distributed
Aperture System (ADAS), which gives aircrews
“superhero” vision, enabling them to “see
through” the helicopter.
During a recent flight demonstration,
Brigadier General Raymond Palumbo, deputy commanding general, Army Special
Operations Command, said, “The ability to see through the cockpit infrastructure
is pretty damn awesome. Can you imagine having this on a Stryker, where you can
see all around and hear each other?”
The ADAS is a multi-spectral day/night viewing system, consisting of six
cameras mounted on the outside of the helicopter. The day/night imagery from
each camera is processed and stitched together to provide each aircrew member
with an independent, unrestricted spherical view around the aircraft. Each aircrew
member independently views the thermal and near-infrared fused imagery as it is
projected onto the visor of their helmet mounted display (HMD).
Each aircrew member’s HMD is continually tracked by an optical head tracker,
and the aircrew member determines the imagery he sees by simply pointing
his head in the desired direction.
Correction
In the article, “DISA, GSA
Combine on COMSAT Acquisition,”
in the August 2009 issue of MIT, the
name of one of the prime contractors
on the DSTS-G program appeared
incorrectly. It is CapRock Government
Solutions.
Robert J. Butler has
been appointed to the
Senior Executive Service
and will be assigned as
deputy assistant secretary
of defense for cyber and
space policy, Office of
the Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy.
Brigadier General
Dwyer L. Dennis,
who has been serving
as commander, 551st
Electronic Systems
Wing, Electronic
Systems Center, Air Force
Materiel Command,
has been assigned as
4 | MIT 13.8
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
people
Since the cameras are located
on the outside of the aircraft, the
images appear to “see through”
the Blackhawk. Informational
symbols from the helicopter instrument
panel also provide heads-up
pilotage and navigation data as
an overlay to the multi-spectral
imagery.
special assistant to the
commander, Air Force
Materiel Command.
Major General Blair
E. Hansen, who has
been serving as director,
ISR capabilities,
deputy chief of staff,
intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance,
Headquarters U.S. Air
Force, has been assigned
as deputy commander,
Joint Functional
Component Command for
Intelligence, Surveillance
and Reconnaissance, U.S.
Strategic Command.
Cubic Defense
Applications has
hired Grant Palmer
as vice president of
communications
systems.
Jon Percy
Overwatch, an
operating unit of
ADAS greatly improves situational awareness by providing aircrew members
the ability to look anywhere about the aircraft to view objects and terrain with
minimal or no structural limitation during day/night operations.
NVESD has been working with several contractors to develop the helmet
display and multi-spectral sensors. One of NVESD’s contractors is also providing
3-D audio cueing and active noise reduction technology.
Similar to a bat’s echolocation, the 3-D audio cueing distributes sound directionally
so that auditory signals sound like they’re coming from the direction of
the source; this also provides separation for different channels of input, like threat
alerts, radio traffic and aircrew dialogue. The 3-D audio is enhanced by ANR,
which also minimizes the risk of hearing loss from noise exposure, reduces fatigue
and stress during long missions, and limits cockpit noise, enabling the aircrew to
concentrate and work efficiently.
One of the issues deployed aircrews have been facing is brownout. Brownout
occurs when a helicopter is landing and the rotorcraft’s downwash throws dust,
sand and other loose debris into the air, severely limiting or obscuring the pilots’
view of the landing area. To combat brownout situations, the aircrew using ADAS
can view pilotage and brownout symbology to let the pilots know where the
helicopter is in relation to the ground as well as look through the floor of the
helicopter into the cleaner downwash directly below them, allowing the aircrew to
conduct safe landings during a dangerous brownout situation.
Textron Systems, has
appointed Jon Percy
as vice president of
business development
and strategy.
Brian Roach has
been named vice
president, federal, for
Juniper Networks. He
previously worked at
Microsoft, where he
was general manager
of product sales for the
Department of Defense.
Aruba Networks, a
provider of wireless
LANs and secure
Diana L. McGonigle
With sadness, KMI Media Group announces the
passing of our friend and co-worker, Copy Editor
Diana L. McGonigle, who died August 15. A skilled
editor with a fierce dedication to accuracy and
timeliness, Diana had been a valued member of the
KMI team since 2005. She will be missed.
Hitesh Sheth
mobility solutions,
has announced the
appointment of Hitesh
Sheth to the newly
created position of
chief operating officer.
www.MIT-kmi.com

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6 | MIT 13.8
Networks
Rapidly evolving from its first incarnations—when it
offered little more than an expensive rugged personal communications
device to its users and a tenuous business
opportunity to its providers—satellite phone technology is
becoming embedded in every part of military life from the
foxhole to the Internet cafe.
The latest wave of improvements in satphones include
reductions in size and weight while simultaneously embracing
advanced networking capabilities designed to also
support command and control and advanced situational
awareness via always-on networks available throughout the
globe.
in the Sky
SATELLITE PHONES EMBRACE
ADVANCED NETWORKING CAPABILITIES
DESIGNED TO SUPPORT COMMAND
AND CONTROL AND ADVANCED
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS.
BY ADAM BADDELEY
MIT CORRESPONDENT
BADDELEYA@KMIMEDIAGROUP.COM
www.MIT-kmi.com

One of the latest developments is the recent
established its own Iridium DoD gateway in Hawaii,
award by the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC)
separate from the firm’s commercial subscriber site
to Iridium for Phase 2 of the Distributed Tactical
in Arizona.
Communications System (DTCS), an extension of
EMSS services were first negotiated in Decem-
“Netted Iridium.” DTCS takes telephony out of the
ber 2000. Iridium is now on its third such contract,
loop, and makes Iridium into a packet switch network
with the most recent negotiations leading to a con-
in the sky. Furthermore, it enables true tactical comtract
signed in March 2008, which with options will
munications by providing push-to-talk, one-to-many,
continue until 2013.
voice and limited data distribution to disadvantaged
“We anticipate that our relationship with DoD
users.
“DTCS is a paradigm shift in many aspects of
Scott Scheimreif
will continue well into the future,” said Scott
Scheimreif, vice president of government programs
tactical comms, not only on the availability of satellite scott.scheimreif@iridium.com for Iridium. “Requirements and global military
assets, but also in the way we do business,” said Igor
activity will determine to what extent. We expect
Marchosky, DTCS technical manager at NSWC Dahlgren Division. that the U.S. DoD’s reliance on commercial satellite communications,
“The DTCS radios represent a much smaller form factor than other specifically Iridium, will continue to expand as their missions and
tactical radios, require far less training and add opportunities that were applications evolve.”
not available before. DTCS also provides a platform for learning how to In addition to providing conventional satphone capabilities across
operate outside the traditional VHF/UHF bands.
DoD, additional network capabilities are being developed. Iridium
“The lessons learned from the implementation and development and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) at Quantico,
of this system present opportunities for other programs in DoD where Va., began an engagement in 2001 to address the needs of commu-
these shifts could be challenging,” Marchosky continued. “One very nications-disadvantaged Marines, who did not have access to military
important aspect of DTCS is to capture how we procure and man- UHF tacsat channels and needed additional tactical narrow band comage
commercial satellites, how we enable disadvantaged users to use munications.
these new assets, and how rapid development and deployment can Scheimreif outlined the process by which the Marines addressed
be accomplished while effectively incorporating warfighter feedback this. “The MCWL chose to look at space-based networks, and spe-
directly from the field.”
Despite its technological roots, it is important to keep in mind that
the DTCS is not a phone. “The DTCS radio system will be completely
removed from the 9555 or any other COTS Iridium products,” Marchosky
emphasized. “The DTCS family of radios, which includes the
RO, ROA, C2, C2A and eventually the C2S, will be capable of operating
in the Iridium network, but will truly operate as a tactical device, and
not as a COTS commercial phone.”
DTCS will be transitioned into the Enhanced Mobile Satellite Service
(EMSS) program under the Defense Information Systems Agency
(DISA). DISA will provide DTCS service as one additional service in the
EMSS product line.
The roadmap for development and fielding of DTCS beyond Phase
2 at this point is not finalized, but demand is high, Marchosky said.
“Today there is a stated need for a large quantity of units in the field.
As OSD and Congress figure out what the portfolio will be, DTCS is
tasked to satisfy urgent needs outside the POM cycles. Our intention
is to satisfy as many of these requirements as possible within the next
12 months.
“Although time will tell, I believe DTCS-Operational stands a good
chance of being mainstream for years to come. DTCS fills a niche in
the C2 arena, and it is unlikely it will ever be more than that. However,
it is a very important niche that has become more relevant in
the world of irregular warfare. The utility that DTCS will present to
the warfighter will exceed how we intend to employ it today, not only
complementing PORs, but also proving new capabilities in other areas,
such as sensors and asset tracking,” he predicted.
cifically Iridium, to try to solve their ship-to-object maneuver
NETWORK CAPABILITIES
Iridium’s relationship with the Department of Defense dates to
the EMSS contract with DISA, which has been the conduit through
which Iridium continues to provide its hardware and services into the
war fighting community, both for the U.S. DoD and allies. DISA has
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 7

problem; their interest in our network focused on our complete
global footprint, low latency and secure architecture. Plus in terms
of cost, DoD had already made the investment into Iridium in
respect to the gateway and subscriber devices.”
Using Iridium, the lab created the Expeditionary Tactical Communications
Systems (ETCS), originally designed as a proof of
concept, although approximately 400 systems were deployed into
the Iraq area of operations as well as into the Horn of Africa.
Feedback on potential improvements to ETCS was then fed
back into MCWL and the NSWC. Warfighter feedback and engineering
improvements led to the evolution and change of the
system architecture to what became Netted Iridium or DTCS. A
limited technical assessment was conducted on the first phase of
the system in October 2006, focusing on quality of service, range
and the stability of the network. The MCWL continues evaluating
this capability to support concept-based experimentation.
To support this activity, a formal relationship was established
between Iridium and DoD. “In 2005, Iridium entered into a cooperative
research and development agreement with the MCWL
to discuss how a system like this could be architected to meet
the growing requirements for these communities. We surveyed
interested parties, reaching out to the services and combatant
commands, including Strategic Command, based on their interest
in ensuring tactical narrowband SATCOM availability, and to
operational combatant commands, specifically PACOM and CENT-
COM, asking for their input,” Scheimreif explained.
GAPFILLER SYSTEM
This led Iridium to envisage adapting the system as a near-term
capability gapfiller between the legacy UHF tacsat and the forthcoming
next generation Mobile User Objective System.
“That is what led Iridium and our industry partners to invest our
own internal R&D dollars into DTCS Phase 1, which was in essence
a completely industry-funded effort,” said Scheimreif. “This resulted
in a limited technical assessment in 2006, in which we and the government
focused on measuring specific attributes of the capability,
including range, scalability and quality of service.”
That success led to the award of DTCS Phase 2 in June, as a fiveyear
effort funded by the Navy. This work will fundamentally change
the nature of the Iridum/EMSS service, which was hitherto limited
to point-to-point, global telephony services. This next stage enhances
each of the three nodes of the network: space, ground and subscriber
equipment to provide greater capabilities in terms of networked operations
while still retaining the legacy global point-to-point capabilities.
“In the military tactical environment, a commercial satellite
telephone isn’t necessarily the optimal tool to support the need for
real-time tactical communications in a challenging environment,”
Scheimreif observed. “As we have seen over the past 10 years, a satellite
phone does provide a critical back-up communications solution.
DTCS changes everything. Improvements and modifications to the
radios, the satellites and the gateway create a new capability that for
most users can now be used as a primary tactical voice and data solution.
“Changes to the subscriber device, supported by ITT NexGen, offer
a more robust, ruggedized tactical radio, known as the Radio Only
device. Our customer is also working on an encryption path to take the
handheld radios from a commercial AES 256 up to a National Security
Agency-accredited system, while making sure that it remains flexible
8 | MIT 13.8
The Inmarsat-4 constellation enables the Broadband Global Area Network family of services. [Image
courtesy of Inmarsat]
enough so it can be distributed out to NATO and coalition allies, supporting
communications interoperability.”
Under Phase 2, Boeing is updating software for the Iridium satellite
fleet, as well as performing systems integration and testing.
One of the biggest differences to the tactical user moving from
ETCS to DTCS capabilities will be its networking. “In Phase 1 we created
a network based on a single beam in which the user could establish
a net around himself with an approximately 100-mile footprint
with high reliability,” Scheimreif said. “In the next phase of the spiral
development, we will leverage multiple spot beams by lighting up
adjacent beams to the user, therefore expanding the footprint from 100
miles to 250 miles. Basically, it is now a pocket radio with a 250-mile
footprint. Under Phase 1, we could employ 250 nets simultaneously
anywhere in the world. Now, we expect to increase that to 2,000 simultaneous
nets, deployable anywhere in the world at the same time.”
Under Phase 1, the networks were primarily voice and position
location information (PLI), but under Phase 2, the program provides
netted data as well. “In Phase 2, we are still able to support voice
and PLI, but have added the ability to push data over the multi-cast
architecture. This includes text, chat, medevac request and so on. If
somebody wants to send out a low-resolution imagery target of interest
in real time to multiple users in the net, distributed over 250 miles,
regardless of whether they are dismounted, in a ground vehicle, or a
fast-mover, DTCS will be able to support that,” Scheimreif said.
This data capability is being envisaged as a benefit to platforms
as part of command and control on-the-move initiatives. Iridium
has already been installed on a variety of platforms, such as LAVs,
HMMWVs and MRAPs, and has been flown on everything from fixed to
rotary wing tactical aircraft, as well as installed at fixed locations like
command centers and forward operating bases.
As the need for commercial satellite communication networks
increases within the DoD community, DTCS presents a viable capability
well into the future, Scheimreif emphasized. “Today, I believe DTCS
is viewed by many as a gapfiller. But once MUOS and other systems
come online, will the need for Iridium and DTCS go away? No, I don’t
think so. MUOS and other military satellite networks will continue to
provide attributes and capabilities that commercial networks cannot.
However, the growing warfighter communication requirements in the
future will still demand access to networks such as Iridium.
www.MIT-kmi.com

“The DTCS system significantly changes how DoD communities
use our network. We are excited about DTCS and truly see the value
and advantages it brings to the warfighter. We are working closely with
the NSWC and our industry partners and are committed to provide
this service,” he added.
GLOBAL BROADBAND
Inmarsat has a longstanding relationship with DoD in terms of
personal communications. The company’s most recent capability
is provided by its Inmarsat-4 (I-4) constellation, which enables the
Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) family of services.
“You can toss a BGAN
terminal in a man pack,”
noted Rebecca Cowen-
Hirsch, a former DISA official
who currently serves as
vice president of global government
services for Inmarsat.
“Special operations and
other military users employ
BGAN for their voice communications,
but they are
also using this capability Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch
for high streaming data and rebecca_cowen-hirsch@inmarsat.com
situational awareness capability.
This is a highly portable capability, and special ops communities
have found it especially valuable for highly disconnected, mobile communications
for small units.”
In addition to frontline applications, BGAN is also widely used for
welfare communications in theater back to the United States, providing
an Internet cafe environment for off-duty forces. Cowen-Hirsch
said, “It is deployed in a wide variety of applications, such as command
and control, but also supporting different types of assets, from intelligence
and battle damage assessment to morale communications and
telemedicine, and virtually everything in between.”
Access to Inmarsat’s BGAN is offered through a demand-assigned
capability. “We are a very different commercial satellite system,”
Cowen-Hirsch explained. “Our core services don’t require leased transponder
bandwidth. You use it as you require it, rather than having
capacity that sits idle when you don’t use it. We have seen a significant
penetration in Southwest Asia, and we know that our streaming IP
traffic in that particular region is very high, not only for U.S. forces but
for coalition operations too.”
BGAN has the ability to support a mobile ad hoc networking capability,
so that a small unit can go into an environment, use BGAN to
create and set up a small network, and then tear it down just as rapidly
and deploy it into another region. Inmarsat is currently working on a
multi-cast capability that ensures that multiple users receive the same
information, simplifying command and control issues.
Traditionally, Inmarsat has simply managed the satellite network,
with interface criteria provided by hardware manufacturers such as
Thrane & Thrane and Hughes Networks. This is now changing, with
Inmarsat due to launch its own global handheld satellite phone in
2010, using the I-4 constellation. “It is our intent as well to provide a
secure satellite phone specifically for military operations,” Cowen-
Hirsch said.
Encryption is key to providing this, and moves to certification
are well advanced. Inmarsat is currently registering with
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www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 9

NSA for its comsec encryption program. “We are
looking to ensure that we have FIPS 140-2—AES
256—commercial grade encryption,” she noted.
“Then for the U.S. market we are currently in
discussions with NSA to pursue their Suite A or
B certification—the new type certification NSA is
introducing.”
Cowen-Hirsch cited Suite B certification, which
is sufficient for secret and below traffic, as Inmarast’s
goal. The U.S. military satphone is anticipated to be
made available shortly after the commercial device
in 2010.
To date, Inmarsat has already injected the highest
level of NSA security into its overall system.
“One thing we offer specifically for the military is
to encrypt our command signal for our satellites, so
that it is consistent with NSA comsec requirement
for Type 1 encryption. This ensures that no one
else can command or control our satellites. That
is an investment we have made to ensure that it is
consistent with military requirements, but certainly
there is a commercial advantage to that as well,”
Cowen-Hirsch said.
Other developments have seen Inmarsat enter
the software defined radio (SDR) field, working with Gatehouse
to instantiate the BGAN waveform on the company’s SDR to demonstrate
future Joint Tactical Radio System-type capabilities. In
addition, earlier this year Inmarsat and Harris announced that the
BGAN waveform has received type certification on the latter’s AN/
PRC-117G Type 1 radio.
NEW CONTENDER
In July, TerreStar Networks successfully launched TerreStar-1.
Described by the company as the world’s largest, most powerful
commercial communications satellite, TerreStar-1 has been developed
while liaising with the government to ensure its capabilities
can meet defense and homeland security requirements.
“We have been looking at the requirements of the government,
specifically looking at first responders, understanding their
TerreStar-1 has been described as the world’s largest, most powerful commercial communications
satellite. [Image courtesy of TerreStar Networks]
10 | MIT 13.8
Dennis Matheson
Martin Neilsen
requirements so that as we develop our systems, we
have addressed their needs, so that they can take
advantage of our solution as we move forward and get
it into service. With the launch of TerreStar 1, which
is the linchpin for the network that will utilize the 2
GHz spectrum in North America, they will be able to
use that satellite’s all-IP communications networks
for the devices that we are going to be delivering,”
said Dennis Matheson, chief technology officer of
TerreStar.
The handset for TerreStar, developed in conjunction
with Finnish firm Elektrobit, is due to
be available by the end of the year. Similar in size
to any other consumer smartphone, the TerreStar-
Elektrobit devices represent the world’s first secure
quad-band GSM and tri-band WCDMA/HSPA smartphone
with integrated all-IP satellite-terrestrial voice
and data capabilities.
“As we worked the design of the smartphone,
anything that needed to be incorporated for DoD was
done as much as we could. Being an all-IP phone, we
have the ability to add in functionality if they need
different encryption, and we will be able to add those
things on top of the general handset,” Matheson said.
“Satellite terminals don’t have to be big and clunky. They can
be in a more consumer package size,” he added. “At the same
time, there is always going to be a need for ruggedized, specialized
devices. What we are going to do is to take the smarts in our consumer
unit and wrap it into the packaging that is needed for that
particular application as requested by our government clients.”
Another company in this field is Globalstar, which provides a
wide variety of mobile and fixed satellite voice products to various
U.S. government agencies, including DoD. Globalstar also provides
those agencies with satellite data solutions using both satellite
simplex and duplex data products for a variety of asset tracking
and remote data monitoring or system control applications.
Martin Neilsen, vice president, new business ventures for
Globalstar, outlined the company’s capability growth path: “Later
this year, Globalstar expects to begin taking delivery of its secondgeneration
satellites, with deployment of the second-generation
constellation expected to finish in 2010. Combined with the
ground segment upgrades, the new network is designed to provide
high-quality voice and data services beyond 2025 and increased
data speeds of up to 256 kbps, in a flexible all-IP configuration.
“Products and services supported are expected to include
push-to-talk and multicasting, advanced messaging capabilities
such as multimedia messaging or MMS, mobile video applications,
geo-location services, multi-band and multi-mode handsets and
data devices with GPS integration,” he continued. “Globalstar is
also expanding its satellite coverage area in both Southeast Asia
and Africa, and the company continues to evaluate other potential
markets.” ✯
Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at
harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. For more information related to this subject,
search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.
www.MIT-kmi.com

BY ADAM BADDELEY
MIT CORRESPONDENT
BADDELEYA@KMIMEDIAGROUP.COM
3G and Beyond
THE LATEST CELLULAR COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES ARE BEING TESTED,
EVALUATED AND PACKAGED FOR URGENT OPERATIONAL NEEDS.
No doubt many warfighters, looking at their bulky combat net
radios and comparing them with their own sleek cell phones at home,
have been left scratching their heads as to why the latter can’t be
replicated on the battlefield.
In reality, however, cellular communications technologies now
in their latest 3G and 4G iterations are currently being tested, evaluated
and packaged for urgent operational needs in the current fight
and integrated in critical programs of record both on and off the
battlefield. This is ensuring that both on and off the battlefield, the
Department of Defense and other federal agencies can conduct every
aspect of their work using militarily secure links that also embrace
the enhanced bandwidth’s connectivity that originates in the civilian
world.
John T. Armantrout, chief technology officer for the Joint Program
Executive Office Joint Tactical Radio System (JPEO JTRS), addressed
the issues involved in bringing this technology to the
battlefield. “It is not more challenging, just different,”
he commented. “Certainly the legacy waveforms have
a lot of history and folks have experience with them, so
it is easy to find a subject matter expert in DoD. Additionally,
they are significantly less complex than the
modern waveforms—and, obviously, significantly less
capable. The networking and cellular waveforms are
new to DoD, and there is little development experience
with them in the department. But we are finding folks
from industry to assist us in the JPEO, and our primes
are quickly gaining similar experience.
Joe Miller
“Keep in mind that the military operational environment is vastly
different than a commercial cellular environment,” Armantrout
continued. “JTRS networking waveforms provide a ‘meshed network’
architecture—no fixed infrastructure required. Each radio has equal
capability and can connect with another like-kind radio directly over
the air. The radio determines coverage by transmit power and antenna
gain configuration. The radio also determines the connectivity population
autonomously. JTRS is capable of relay and routing messages
and provides for ad hoc connectivity between two or more radios.”
MULTIPLE TECHNOLOGIES
There are multiple 3G cellular technologies. In meeting some
of the DoD’s key communications objectives, General Dynamics C4
Systems is focusing on two of them—CDMA and WiMAX. Their capabilities
are being incorporated as part of three key
programs: the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS),
a UHF SATCOM network; JTRS Handheld, Manpack
and Small Form Fit (HMS); and the Warfighter Information
Network-Tactical (WIN-T).
MUOS uses a wideband CDMA architecture, much
like a traditional cellular implementation in that there
is an infrastructure associated with it, albeit one that
is partially satellite-based. Joe Miller, director of JTRS
programs at General Dynamics, explained the underlying
challenges for HMS terminals in supporting its
3G waveform.
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 11

“From a terminal implementation perspective, you need more
processing elements to host these networks and the applications
associated with them. In addition, as these waveforms are adopted
for military applications, unique modifications are required in the 3G
technologies,” Miller said. “A very good example is the fact that they
have to co-exist with terrestrial communications around the world,
so it is very important to get spectral authorization to use MUOS.
You can’t interface with existing terrestrial communications so the
waveform is being modified for spectral adaptation so that it doesn’t
jam existing commercial networks.”
The first MUOS terminal will be the two-channel JTRS HMS
manpack. The manpack is a two channel design with a 30 MHz–2.5
GHz 20W output requirement for both channels. Two separable power
amplifiers (PA) are mounted on each side of the radio. Either channel
extends down to 2 MHz with the addition of a high frequency
PA. To run MUOS on the manpack requires a replacement MUOS
PA that provides the additional circuitry required to host the MUOS
waveform.
This approach has inherent flexibility, Miller said. “You can put
it on either side, or put it on both sides and field-replace the unit. In
addition, because you have all of the modem and security hardware
and software inside the main manpack, you can run the other waveforms
using the MUOS PA in bypass mode, at the modem’s normal
5W output.”
Right now MUOS is not a requirement on every JTRS HMS set,
but only the manpack and handhelds. “I would expect that any set that
they want to have SATCOM capability, they will eventually want MUOS
on it. In reality, though, what they are initially looking for is a manpack
terminal and a handheld terminal for MUOS. I don’t believe there
is any current thought for any of the embeddable HMS form factors
that go on sensors, to be MUOS compatible as they go through local
nets. Once MUOS capability is reduced down to a handheld capability,
it would be no problem to add it to the embedded variant that goes
with the Ground Soldier Ensemble,” Miller commented.
A broad concept of 3G incorporates WiMAX, an OFDMA-based
wireless technology now being adapted for use by General Dynamics
on JTRS HMS and WIN-T. Miler said, “There is growing interest for
WiMAX on HMS. Standard commercial implementations of WiMAX
do not incorporate true ad hoc capabilities, but our adaptation of
WiMAX does incorporate that ad hoc functionality.
“Commercial WiMAX implementations rely on network access
points for connection into a network,” he continued. “The military
doesn’t have the benefit of these network access points because of
a lack of fixed infrastructure. The difficult piece for the military is
making it fully ad hoc so that every node on the network can support
any other node and route information through it, as well as adding in
the security features that are not supported but required for military
applications.”
In WIN-T, General Dynamics has implemented a modified WiMAX
that is used as a mobile local area network purely for secure local area
connectivity.
EMPIRE CHALLENGE
One of the key technological inflexion points has been the creation
of cellular and 3G wireless environments that can be scaled down as
well as up, making them suitable to military deployment and disaster
recovery, explained Michael Coyne, chief technology officer of Ericsson
Federal. “We have cellular systems based on standard hardware
12 | MIT 13.8
and software that is packaged into a small, self-contained ‘system in a
box’ called QuicLINK. This system is scaled to be deployable and work
in communities where the system itself is mobile, making 3G and 4G
cellular systems viable in this space.”
This concept was tested in DoD’s recent Empire Challenge event, a
month-long exercise designed to take new technology, insert it in realworld
tactical environments and test its ability to work with existing
architectures to meet immediate operational needs.
“Our primary focus with QuicLINK was on delivering broadband
wireless to the soldier in the field, enabling multimedia capabilities
with strong focus on distribution of voice and video information from
sensor platforms. We also showed some IMS-based software that gave
situational awareness capabilities and multimedia communications,”
Coyne said, citing the example of a 360-degree immersive video C2
system, where Ericsson was asked with very short notice to allow the
vendor to connect their system to QuicLINK, permitting a successful
test.
“What is unique about Ericsson’s IMS solution, used in combination
with QuicLINK and using fixed broadband access, is that we
are using a standardized IMS SIP core,” he noted. “That is interesting
because in the past, people would tend to build custom-made IPbased
systems, so if you buy from one vendor you get everything you
need in a proprietary system. This does not support a multi-vendor
environment or transparent sharing of information across agencies
in a peered, policy managed way. The implementation Ericsson
showed at Empire Challenge is a prime example of this approach,
using standard IMS interfaces and various third-party software with
more than eight different vendors in addition to our gear. We took
best of breed.”
The outcome from Empire Challenge, Coyne explained, is that
Ericsson’s technology is now being considered for deployment in
systems due to be rolled out in the next six to nine months. “Empire
Challenge has been a big breakthrough for us. It has moved us from
PowerPoint slides to real systems in a real-world environment,
working with what is already deployed in the field,” he said.
Coyne emphasized that the QuicLINK system is a complement
to and enhancer of existing military capabilities. “We have to be able
to say to guys with SINCGARS or JTRS, that you don’t have to throw
away the things you have,” he said. “For example, in the public safety
arena, we have worked with vendors of P25 deployed systems and
have already enabled those products to tunnel over and go to cellular
handsets that look and feel as though they were part of the P25
group. It’s a combination of an interworking gateway and an ability
to tunnel a client on a handset. We can anticipate the same thing
applying in this space. We will not try to replace what is already
there, rather we will augment and enhance.”
One of the first 3G customers in DoD for Nokia Siemens Networks
(NSN), meanwhile, was the Army, which acquired a high
speed downlink packet access 3G network in 2006.
“There are other DoD entities that are also evaluating our technology,”
said Robert Fennelly, head of U.S. government sales at NSN.
“We provide the technology, support the technology and keep them
apprised of the roadmaps for where the technology is headed. We
also have a cooperative research agreement with Army CERDEC.
That is another effort where we present technologies and are in the
process of delivering latest generation technologies for evaluation.
In one example, we have upgraded the radio network and introduced
IMS technology, allowing the Army to evaluate applications such as
VoIP.”
www.MIT-kmi.com

Unified Secure Voice and Data
in the Palm of your Hand
General Dynamics’ Sectéra ® Edge is the world’s first NSA-certified Type 1 ruggedized
smartphone, developed for the National Security Agency’s SME PED (Secure Mobile Environment
Portable Electronic Device). This compact and lightweight device allows users to protect classified
and unclassified voice and data communications from one easy-to-use handheld device.
The RUGGED Sectéra Edge smartphone provides secure and wireless:
® devices
General Dynamics Secure Communications: We Bring You What’s Next.
The Sectéra ® Edge is
the only SME PED that
switches between an
integrated classified
and unclassified
PDA with a
press.

The underlying strategy behind this interest lies
in obtaining synergies with the commercial sector’s
economies of scale. “The commercial world offers a
wholly different cost point,” said Fennelly. “There are
millions of subscribers out there and the technology
moves very quickly. DoD is interested in riding the
technology curve and getting the latest capabilities,
whether it is bandwidth, applications or seamless
databases.”
The next generation of technology is 4G or LTE,
which is being addressed via the initiatives with the
research agreement with NSN and promoted in a
range of defense forums.
“We presented at the Army Science Board, looking
at future technologies,” Fennelly said. “They are very
familiar with the LTE technology, and we anticipate
that they will make an investment in that in the near
future. The flat architecture that 4G brings enables a
simpler network with greater bandwidth data speeds.
Also, a more compact architecture raises the chance of
a tactical deployment of the technology which would
have been difficult with commercial grade equipment
in the past.”
Tom Liggett
Scott Totzke
device, so that anybody who didn’t have the appropriate
access for that level of classification couldn’t access
the data, either from the far end or by picking up the
device and attempting to hack into it.”
The advent of 4G, Liggett believes, represents further
opportunities in terms of higher data rates so a lot
of mission-critical requirements can now be met. “The
other key technology going forward is the migration
to VoIP. It has been a long time coming and it is still
coming, but once 3G networks universally adopt VoIP,
we will be able to take advantage of that technology,
and the Edge will be able to offer some additional users
efforts to use some of the secure voice services.
“Currently, the secure voice capability runs over
circuit switched data service technology, a legacy
technology in the cellular world that is gradually
being replaced. As that happens, we will migrate to
VoIP, and that will provide additional features like a
single phone number for different devices, potentially
a higher voice quality and other capabilities like that,”
Liggett added.
SECURITY IS PRIMARY
SMARTPHONE CAPABILITIES
For DoD or federal government business, security
always comes first, said RIM’s Scott Totzke, vice presi-
General Dynamics C4 Systems Sectéra product line
dent for BlackBerry security. “DoD is comparable to
comprises a family of secure voice and data products.
a large enterprise customer that has centralized gov-
Sectéra begins with the secure wireless GSM phone
ernance of their geographically dispersed personnel
for 2G cellular networks. The new 3G wireless product
around the world, but there are some baseline criteria
is the Sectéra Edge smartphone, which provides the
for wireless security that are required to even enter
same secure voice capability of its predecessors. In
into the discussion with that customer base.”
addition to basic point-to-point data services, however,
Totzke cited Homeland Security Presidential
it also adds the capabilities of a modern smartphone,
Dan Bigbie Directive 12 and DoD 8100—policy documents gov-
including push e-mail, Web browsing, MS Office and
dbigbie@lgsinnovations.com
additional applications. The Sectéra wireless GSM
erning the use of wireless devices—as well as the
National Institute of Science and Technology’s Federal
phone was based on a standard commercial Motorola cell phone Information Processing Standards 140, which independently validates
to a commercial standard, while the Sectéra Edge is ruggedized to the design and implementation of an encryption module that is part of
MILSTD-810F.
a product. “RIM has been a longstanding participant in that program,”
“The target market for the product is segmented. It is used par- he said. “At one point we were the first and only mobile solution and
ticularly by Pentagon seniors and others in federal agencies and DoD a lot of our competitors have followed suit.”
for their day-to-day communications. The products are also used in a To support its strength in encryption, RIM acquired Certicom
tactical environment and run on the native network. It is also used in in 2006. Previously the National Security Agency obtained a gov-
applications where a unit will drop in a portable cell site and just use it ernmentwide license for the firm’s Elliptic Curve Cryptography
for local communications,” said Tom Liggett, business area manager technology used in the NSA Suite B standard for secure government
for end-user and voice products at General Dynamics C4 Systems. communications, which is now part of RIM’s portfolio of products.
When a secure call or a data session is required, the devices RIM’s approach to DoD business has been to focus on enhancing
automatically negotiate the highest appropriate security level, Liggett the security of COTS products. “BlackBerry has been [Type 1] Suite B
explained. “One device might be keyed for Suite B only to protect sen- compliant for about seven years now, so we don’t build Type 1 [Suite
sitive but unclassified information, while I might have a device keyed A] products. Our forte is secure but unclassified, and 80 percent to
with Suite A for classified information and also with Suite B, so we 90 percent of day-to-day communications within DoD falls into that
could go secure using Suite B. That is all done by virtue of the secu- realm. For Type 1 [Suite A], you are into purpose-built hardware with
rity protocols used. There are two standard security protocols, and we customized requirements that only allow you to sell the product to a
implement them both. One is called SCIP [Secure Communications subset of the U.S. federal government. That is where you end up with
Interoperability Protocol] for secure voice communications. $3,000-plus phones, and that is not a COTS product.”
“For data communications, we use the HAIPE [High Assurance RIM works closely with the DoD on the Wireless and Secure Tech-
IP Encryption] protocol. When you exchange classified e-mails, there nical Implementation Guide (STIG), which establishes requirements
is specific data-at-rest encryption technology in the device that uses for properly configuring and managing the security features that are
NSA-certified technology. The Edge encrypts the classified data on the inherent in the BlackBerry platform.
14 | MIT 13.8
www.MIT-kmi.com

“We routinely meet with representatives of the
Office of the Secretary of Defense and Defense Information
Systems Agency (DISA) to talk about what
their needs are from a mobile device standpoint so that
we can accommodate that in our technology roadmap.
We have also worked with DISA to open up the STIG
to create guidance on how to safely allow third-party
applications to be safely installed on DoD networks,”
Totzke said.
“Some of our large enterprise customers are also
starting to look at this model, so DoD is certainly a
thought leader in this space,” he noted, adding that issues for the
future include using BlackBerry smartphones on 3G and, in the future,
4G networks, as a communications modem for attached devices.
Looking beyond e-mail, RIM believes it has more to offer. “Having
a reliable device that provides a secure connection back to your mail
server is certainly important. Now, however, DoD, like a lot of other
customers, is starting to look at how they can leverage that investment
in mobile technology. We for example have seen Army recruiting have
an application for signing up new recruits. We also have emergency
contact lists for continuity of government and continuity of operations,
and this has been a fairly big initiative within DoD.”
At the core of the offering, Totzke said, is RIM’s ability to manage
scarcity of bandwidth in catastrophic or certainly high stress situations,
where a land line infrastructure has failed.
“I was in London when the 2005 subway bombing happened, and I
was able to effectively communicate with my boss and family sending
BlackBerry e-mail, but I couldn’t make a phone call,” he recalled. “It
is that efficiency of network use that has allowed DoD to start looking
at BlackBerry as a fallback if the mail server fails. If I can’t make a
phone call, we are still able to get messages routed between BlackBerry
devices. So continuity of government really comes into play.”
RAPIDLY DEPLOYABLE NETWORK
Both the use of 3G and 4G wireless communications technologies
should be considered a strong addition to existing communication
solutions in the battlefield, but not a replacement, according to executives
of LGS Innovations, the independent U.S. government subsidiary
of Alcatel-Lucent. These networks are typically deployed at higher frequencies
(typically between 450MHz and 3.5GHz) and while they offer
significant bandwidth advantages, they do not yet offer all of the transmission
range advantages of the lower frequency legacy equipment.
“The network needs to be both expandable and flexible enough
that it is able to easily support every application the warfighter needs
both now and in the future,” said Dan Bigbie, vice president business
development for LGS. “Leveraging our broad history of providing
long-term communications solutions, we look to deliver standardsbased
networks so the ability to incorporate new applications is not
only possible, but also easy.”
Probably the most critical component of a 3G/4G solution is the
creation of a proper network architecture that gives users the ability
to form ad hoc wireless mesh networks that can adapt to the needs of
various deployment scenarios on demand.
LGS is in the final phase of testing a rapidly deployable 4G solution.
This innovative rapidly deployable network is a compact, self
contained network in a box (less than 1 cubic foot) used for establishing
secure, real time, mission critical voice, video and sensor communications.
Macy W. Summers
For the last few years LGS has provided the
TacBSR, a single box GSM cellular solution, to DoD
customers. The TacBSR delivers the smallest form factor
in the industry. It leverages VoIP for backhaul and
allows multiple TacBSRs to inter-network in a simple,
easy to deploy and manage, flat architecture employing
commodity IP networks, providing “cellular over IP”
functionality.
“Current network architectures tend to be hierarchical
and centralized which limits communications
when cut off from the core,” said Wayne Eagleson, LGS
general manager. “The advantage of a rapidly deployable technology is
that it can provide mobile, flexible and self sufficient broadband voice,
video and data for deployments with company, brigades or battalions
without having to rely on any existing network infrastructure. When
commercially available, systems like the RDN can take advantage of
commercial cellular network technology enabling the ability to build
the network on the fly.”
SOCIAL NETWORKING
At the Coalition Warfare Interoperability Demonstrations this
summer, meanwhile, Lockheed Martin demonstrated what company
executives see as the beginning of a new future of social networking
and related technologies in a military context.
Using the combination of legacy Defense Information Systems
Agency network devices and commercial wireless infrastructure, the
company and its partners demonstrated the ability to deliver media
rich data and applications with smartphones. Applications included
tactical maps, UAV tasking, integrated biometrics and an ISR Enterprise.
Combined with research and development programs, Lockheed
Martin is rapidly enabling the irregular operator and warfighter with
faster and more collaborative tools that provide rich robust applications
to the first mile and seamless connectivity for success in garrison,
on patrol or in disadvantaged positions.
“Our young warfighters and operators come from a world where
they can communicate at will,” said Macy W. Summers, vice president
for strategic development with Lockheed Martin Information Systems
& Global Services-Defense. “The ‘first mile’ capabilities and mobility
of the teenager hanging out at the mall easily outpace those provided
today to our combatants and operators in the field.
“That teenager has easy-to-use applications for provisioning, information
sharing, situational awareness, course of action determination,
and imagery data,” Summers said.
These fundamental shifts in computing, mobility and human
interaction mean there is a great opportunity for the warfighter operating
in environments that encompass traditional, irregular, disruptive
and catastrophic threats. Lockheed Martin believes bold thinking
and solution-creation using Web 2.0, smartphones and mobile communications
is the answer.
“We’re doing it today—changing the very nature of the interface
of the edge,” Summers said. “It’s beyond novelty; we’re innovating for
the mission.” ✯
Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at
harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. For more information related to this subject,
search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 15

Digital Technology
for Small Unit Leaders
IN ORDER TO LEVERAGE THE POTENTIAL OF NETWORKED INFORMATION, SMALL UNIT LEADERS NEED GREATER BANDWIDTH
CONNECTING THEM TO A SECURE NETWORK.
As the U.S. military enters the ninth
year of overseas contingency operations
against terrorist groups, doctrine writers,
material developers, and capability managers
are sprinting to keep up with the rapidly
changing demands of the warfighter. This
conflict features asymmetric threats within a
disparate culture and language of a populace
struggling for basic essential services and
security. Complex, densely populated urban
areas as well as huge expanses of rural, harsh
terrain further complicate the mission.
At the heart of all the challenges is
maintaining effective command and control
(C2). In order to adapt to the illusiveness of
our adversary and the overwhelming scope
of full spectrum operations, leaders at every
level have demonstrated enormous creativity
in adapting “legacy” doctrine and systems to
accomplish the mission at hand.
A traditional view of tactical military command
and control is a centralized structure.
At the battalion level and above, seasoned,
experienced, centrally selected commanders
lead a trained battle staff, leveraging
robust intelligence resources, to plan and
disseminate operations orders and intelligence
updates for execution. Eager but less
16 | MIT 13.8
experienced company commanders execute
those orders and report information higher
to provide the higher headquarters situational
awareness and refine the plan.
These inputs from subordinate units feed
refinements to the plan in the continuous
planning and execution of the mission,
resulting in fragmentary orders generated
back to the subordinate smaller units. In
simple terms, higher headquarters develop
the plan, and company commanders do what
they are told.
Current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
have demonstrated a shift in that traditional
centralized view. Although battalion
and above headquarters continue to provide
orders and updates, company-level units
have established significantly more robust
“command posts” at their level. Companies
are developing home-grown intelligence:
leveraging human intelligence assets taskorganized
to them as well as intelligence
developed from direct relationships with
indigenous security force and improved relationships
with the local populace.
Often intelligence gathered on an objective,
during a cordon and search for example,
is rapidly exploited to conduct subsequent
BY COLONEL BUDDY CARMAN
AND MIKE KELLEY
operations within hours of the first objective.
Junior leaders are operating on intent, adapting
rapidly to the environment and working
under the principle of asking for forgiveness
rather than waste valuable time seeking
permission.
DECENTRALIZED
COUNTERINSURGENCY
As a result of this shift in the C2 paradigm,
the Army is struggling to adapt
doctrine, organization structure and material
requirements to resource the company
commander with additional people, training
and equipment to enable improved command
and control. Why did this dramatic
change to C2 occur?
As the Army’s 2004 interim field manual
on counterinsurgency operations states, “C2
during counterinsurgency requires greater
decentralization to small unit leaders. Normal
operating methods focused around a
single commander’s approval often prove
inefficient, untimely, and ineffective for
the situation. Commanders must develop a
level of trust communication with subordinates
and foster their initiative well before
www.MIT-kmi.com

arriving into the theater of operations. Commanders
must empower their subordinates
with clear authority for specific operations.
The subordinate leaders must clearly understand
orders, missions, and the commander’s
intent down to the squad and fire team level.
… If C2 and decision making become slow
processes, the insurgents can exploit this.
Additionally, commanders often coordinate
with other agencies that will not be present
on a conventional battlefield.”
The nature of the counterinsurgency
(COIN) environment demands decentralized
C2. Small unit leaders must develop relationships
with the local populace and hostnation
security forces that share their area
of operations. Intelligence often hinges on
these relationships and is more commonly
developed from the “bottom up” that from
analysis form higher levels. Therefore, they
have developed internal C2 structure to meet
the demands of this fight.
The current fight has dramatically
increased the operational tempo for ground
forces. In addition to repeated combat
deployments, the nation is asking the force
to accomplish an incredibly broad range of
missions and skills, including training host
nation security forces; assisting in nationbuilding
and providing essential services;
developing and improving cultural awareness
and basic language skills; and conducting
time-sensitive missions to capture or kill
senior insurgent leaders by exploiting fleeting
intelligence from national assets.
Previously, these are missions or tasks
that were associated with special operations
forces, after undergoing highly specialized
training. Now, these are routine lines of
operations for conventional ground forces.
These seasoned warriors understand the
intricacies of counterinsurgency operations.
They’ve developed relationships with the
people, both security forces and the local
populace. They have built trust and learned
how to develop and exploit human intelligence
sources at the lowest levels of leadership.
They understand the second order
effects of their actions. They’ve learned the
fundamentals of COIN not from the schoolhouse,
but the school of hard knocks.
Today’s soldiers and Marines are the
product of the information age—“digital
natives” with no experience of a world that
isn’t networked. Small unit leaders are very
comfortable with multitasking—assimilating
and leveraging enormous amounts of
data from a variety of sources simultaneously.
They are extremely comfortable with
automation and information technology and
often have made it an integral part of every
aspect of their lives.
Two notable examples of successful systems
are Force XXI Battle Command Brigade
and Below (FBCB2) and Tactical Ground
Reporting (TIGR). Although originally
developed in the mid-’90s for the Army’s
Counterattack Corps, FBCB2 is a real-time
situational awareness and C2 system that
automatically updates friendly locations and
displays reported enemy activity on georeferenced
imagery.
TIGR is a Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) initiative: a multimedia
reporting system for soldiers at the
patrol level, allowing users to collect and
share information to improve situational
awareness and to facilitate collaboration and
information analysis. The digital-native leaders
at the company level are able to exploit
these systems to improve situational awareness,
plan missions, and conduct more effective
command and control.
But a significant gap remains for C2
at the company and below. In addition to
improvements to manning and training,
small unit leaders need better connectivity to
the network and a simplified interface.
INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS
In order to leverage the potential of
networked information, small unit leaders
need greater bandwidth connecting them to
a secure network. In order to keep pace with
the growing demand, the military must find
a more effective way to leveraging current
and emerging wireless technology to push
connectivity to the lowest level. Whatever
bandwidth we will be able to provide will
be rapidly consumed with a variety of critical
data: photos, biometric data, streaming
video, and a growing amount of other sensor
data.
In order to meet the demand, we must
partner with industry to develop a variety of
low-cost, redundant communications options
for both terrestrial and celestial networks to
provide a robust network capability.
Leveraging the digital native’s inherent
expertise with information technology is fundamental
to any successful automation tool.
Part of TIGR’s success as a small unit leaders’
operational tool is its ease of use. The software
developers patterned the graphic user interface
off of Web 2.0 applications like Facebook
and Twitter. A variety of COTS systems have
been developed and deployed, but they often
require “swivel chair” operations—taking
data from one system and manually entering
it into another, incompatible system.
As we develop new software applications
and improve existing systems, material
developers and industry must make a
concerted effort to create an intuitive user
interface that allows the warfighter to access
applications from a single work station. The
development must include refinements from
user juries that allow recently redeployed
leaders to operate prototype systems and
provide feedback on improvements to make
them effective. Creating a more intuitive
user interface also reduces the amount of
training time required to operate the system
since it more closely replicates the systems
he uses every day.
Although this article has focused on the
need for improving the network and software
applications for small unit leaders, these are
merely tools needed by leaders to improve
effectiveness. It is a dangerous assumption
that improvements in information technology
will solve the challenges of the current
fight. Used inappropriately, they can actually
become a distraction or lead to micromanagement
from a command post. Improving
information technology will be a critical
enabler only when coupled with disciplined,
realistic training and professional, engaging
leaders.
In order to bring about effective change in
improving information technology for small
unit leaders, the military must skillfully partner
with industry. The current acquisition
system is too cumbersome to keep pace with
the rapid improvements in technology. We
must become more agile to leverage emerging
technology more effectively.
Our industry partners, meanwhile,
must develop a longer view in their relationship
with the military, focused on
modular, upgradeable systems, providing
insight to promising emerging technology,
and geared toward customer satisfaction
and support to the warfighter instead of
the “quick buck.” ✯
Colonel Buddy Carman is the TRADOC
capability manager for platform battle
command and combat identification, and
Mike Kelley is his deputy.
Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at
harrisond@kmimediagroup.com.
For more information related to this subject,
search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 17

Putting the IT in “Mobility”
AIR MOBILITY COMMAND’S COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTORATE PROVIDES INTEGRATED,
RESPONSIVE, RELIABLE AND SECURE COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION.
(Editor’s Note: This article, provided by the AMC/A6 Director’s Action Group, is one of a series of profiles of key commands in the
information technology and communications fields.)
Members of Multinational Corps-Iraq came together at the Joint Airspace Interoperability
Synchronization Conference at Camp Victory, Iraq. Key players from the Army, Air Force and civilians
from all over Iraq and the Combined Air Operations Center discuss the complexities of managing
the joint air picture and how to improve joint tactics, techniques and procedures. [U.S. Air Force
photo]
With a team comprising more than 132,000 active duty, Reserve,
Guard and civilian personnel, Air Mobility Command (AMC) supports
America’s national interests and the collective will of the American
people through three core competencies: airlift, aerial refueling and
aeromedical evacuation.
Our mission is to provide global air mobility—right effects, right
place, right time. AMC’s airmen are put in harm’s way every day to
deliver troops, cargo and fuel with velocity and precision. On a typical
day, we plan 900 sorties, move 2,000 tons of cargo and transport
6,000 passengers. This operations tempo equates to, on average, a
mobility aircraft departure every 90 seconds, 24 hours a day, 365 days
a year. In the past year, AMC flew 66 percent of the total missions in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Within AMC, the Directorate of Communications (A6) community
supports AMC by providing integrated, responsive, reliable,
and secure communications and information; providing services and
policy for managing information as a strategic resource for optimum
customer support; and serving as AMC’s chief information officer,
formulating policies and guidance on the strategic planning, implementation
and sustainment of information systems.
We provide this support not only to Headquarters AMC, but
also to its 12 bases, the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center
18 | MIT 13.8
(TACC) Air Operations Center, and U.S. Transportation Command
(USTRANSCOM). A6 is made up of four divisions: capabilities and
integration; command and control mobility systems; operations;
and plans, policy and resources. Through our directorate, we plan,
design, develop, test, deploy, operate, and sustain numerous information
technology systems/programs designed specifically for AMC.
This article will discuss several of these systems/programs,
including Senior Leader Command, Control and Communications
System-Airborne (SLC3S-A), In-Transit Visibility (ITV), and Enterprise
Information Management (EIM). It will then briefly discuss
how A6 has creatively leveraged Air Force Smart Operations for the
21st Century (AFSO21) and developed several solutions to offset
severe manning reductions across AMC.
SENIOR LEADER COMMS
The SLC3S-A program provides worldwide airborne communication
capabilities for our nation’s top senior leaders, including
the president, vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense,
director of national intelligence, secretary of the department of
homeland security, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the
combatant commanders. We also manage the ground network
interface for these airborne assets, known as the Executive Airlift
Communications Network, which provides connectivity to the
Department of Defense’s Global Information Grid.
Additionally, we’re pursuing related efforts to modernize our
commercial and military satellite and line-of-sight systems to bring
higher capacity connectivity for national command and control capability.
AMC is leading the effort to keep our national senior leaders
connected and protected, even while traveling in airborne assets.
We also manage AMC’s command-unique C2, ITV, operations and
business system programs. The C2 and ITV systems we plan, design,
develop, test, deploy, operate and maintain provide support across
the Mobility Air Forces (MAF) and the USTRANSCOM mission spectrum
from initial planning through execution and completion. The
C2 systems are responsible for all AMC mission planning, including
identifying the appropriate aircraft and air crew and optimizing the
flight path.
The ITV systems track the people and cargo on these missions
from origin to destination. Both the C2 and ITV systems are crucial
to AMC’s airlift, aerial refueling and aeromedical evacuation missions,
and used daily to fly our sorties. Our business systems provide for the
contracting of the commercial reserve air fleet and accountability of
airlift mission budget and costs between government entities.
www.MIT-kmi.com

We provide the systems to integrate global mobility enterprise
C2 and ITV capabilities, supporting an average of 900 sorties a day
around the world; enhance the velocity and precision in AMC’s airlift
capabilities and USTRANSCOM’s supply/delivery chain; and plan,
execute, track and account for nearly 4,000 pallets, more than 2,000
loose pieces of cargo, and over 6,000 passengers daily. These systems
improve the ability to estimate fuel and optimize the routes of
flights to make the most efficient use of fuel; enhance the capability
to contract with commercial airlift providers; and provide the means
of accounting, budgeting and analysis for over $7 billion.
These systems collectively support more than 34,000 users
worldwide. They have been used and continue to be used by the
618th TACC Air Operations Center at Scott Air Force Base , Ill., to
manage MAF operations, by planners and operators in both Afghanistan
and Iraq, and by those responsible for planning and executing
the day-to-day mobility missions, exercises and contingencies wherever
they occur to support peacetime, humanitarian and wartime
operations.
Along with standard network and application technology, we
leverage different technologies to constantly improve system capabilities.
We use a multi-mastered replication scheme, across diverse
locations, to synchronize enclaves, provide maximum performance,
ensure data quality and integrity, and significantly enhance reliability
and survivability. Our air cargo and passenger system is undergoing
a major upgrade to extend and add new services and capabilities
supporting the Worldwide Port System’s sealift capability.
We have adapted network, wireless and automated information
technology to extend capabilities directly to the air and water
ports, flight lines and warehouses. This new capability
enables USTRANSCOM and AMC to track passengers
and cargo not only in the air but also on the ground,
and extends our systems to our joint community. Our
teams continue to improve on our initial development
and fielding of a service-oriented architecture capability
targeted at improving data exchange and reducing
reliance on system-to-system interface.
WEB-BASED SERVICES
The HQ AMC deployment of EIM was one of the
largest IT enabling initiatives we’ve fielded. EIM is
essentially a collection of Web-based services that use Microsoft
SharePoint as the underlying technology. Over the last two years,
our team has stood up one of the largest SharePoint environments
in the world. The result is a single, centralized enterprise
environment hosting over 73,000 users and their data, enabling an
unprecedented level of warfighter collaboration.
We’ve established an EIM deployment team that reached out
to 12 AMC bases to identify their unique organizational structure
and data requirements and then built team sites for all their units.
We also expanded our services to support USTRANSCOM users at
Scott AFB. EIM has become the cornerstone of our daily ops; commanders
live by it and users say they love it.
Through our EIM deployment process, we’ve identified and
automated many EIM process workflows and benchmarked those
Col. Bradley K. Ashley
throughout the command. To date, we’ve added over 70 solutions
sets to our EIM catalog of services. Two of our most-used
solutions are the task management tool and an electronic performance
report system. These EIM services have totally revolutionized
the way AMC does business. Building on our success,
this year we are working to move all the Reserve wings on our
network onto EIM, bringing the number of EIM users to over
100,000.
Finally, the communications and information (C&I) community
has experienced a decline in resources due to Air Force-wide
manpower reductions. Our airmen and civilians have found ways
to minimize a loss of nearly 9,000 Air Force C&I resources, of
which 1,200 were within AMC, while experiencing a 6 percent
increase in Air Force deployment requirements. Through IT initiatives
like EIM, we’re leveraging AFSO21 to automate processes
to help offset our reductions in force and increasing deployment
tempo.
We’ve developed two initiatives to help reduce and consolidate
manning: client service administrators (CSAs) consolidation
and a theater deployable communications (TDC) restructure.
The CSA initiative targeted administrators working at every
AMC unit and squadron and consolidated a number to the base
communications squadrons, effectively reducing the number of
CSAs in the command from roughly 1,600 to about 200, which
represented nearly an 85 percent decrease and saved AMC $28.9
million annually. This action took workload away from the noncommunications
units and better enabled the communications
community to manage network requirements such as vulnerabilities
and fixes.
Our second initiative redirected our TDC to a
contingency capability structure, reducing existing
manpower requirements by approximately 80
percent and reapplying those positions to existing
AMC priorities, a win-win for all parties. Both initiatives
not only streamlined manpower resources,
but reduced monetary requirements for training
and equipment by nearly $1 million per year.
The communications community plays a crucial
role in supporting AMC’s overall mission. In
today’s very demanding, IT-intensive world, we
continually strive to meet and exceed AMC’s needs
through the very best in IT programs and systems such as the
SLC3S-A program, ITV and implementation of EIM. Even while
faced with resource reductions, we implemented several creative
initiatives to offset these losses and maintain the same level of
service to AMC customers and continue to look for targets of
opportunities to streamline our processes.
Colonel Bradley K. Ashley, director of communications,
summed up the work of his organization this way: “AMC/A6 puts
the IT in ‘mobility.’” ✯
Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at
harrisond@kmimediagroup.com. For more information related to this subject,
search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 19

First Responder Interoperability
P25 WAVEFORM PORTING PROJECT SEEKS TO ENABLE MILITARY RADIOS TO COMMUNICATE
WITH STATE AND LOCAL AGENCIES.
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).
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. David Teague, left, performs first aid as Maj. Christopher Gamble radios
in for accountability during an Operational Readiness Inspection at McEntire Air National Guard
Station, S.C. Both Airmen are wearing mission-oriented protective posture gear and are both
assigned to the 240th Combat Communications Squadron. [U.S. Air Force photo]
The JPEO JTRS has begun work on a Project 25 (P25) waveform
porting project in conjunction with the University of California,
San Diego (UCSD) California Institute for Telecommunications and
Information Technology (Calit2) facility. The effort represents the first
phase of a three-phased approach by the JPEO JTRS designed to allow
military radios to interoperate with emergency and first responder
agencies.
Phase one of this project has the UCSD engineers utilizing the
Software Communications Architecture (SCA) and JTRS application
program interfaces to initially implement P25 in a software simulation.
Next, they will port the waveform to a COTS development platform,
which will then lead to a demonstration of RF end-to-end functionality.
Finally, the team will demonstrate interoperability with commercial
P25 radios, simulating military interoperability with COTS first
responder radios running the P25 waveform.
The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International
(APCO) is the world’s largest organization dedicated to public
safety telecommunications. Formerly called APCO-25, P25 is now a
joint effort between APCO, Telecommunications Industry Association,
National Association of State Telecommunications Directors and
various federal agencies. P25 concerns the development of standards
for digital telecommunications technology, including an objective to
determine consensus standards for digital radio equipment embracing
elements of interoperability, spectrum efficiency and cost economies.
20 | MIT 13.8
“This is a crucial step towards making JTRS radios interoperable
with first responders,” said Richard North, technical director for JPEO
JTRS. “Phase two will be to port the UCSD-developed APCO-25 waveform
onto a JTRS radio with additional modes, which may include
encryption, trunking and analog FM. Both phase one and phase two
are risk-mitigation efforts before moving to the third and final phase.”
Phase three of the project will be the incorporation of the P25
into the JTRS program of record, which provides the management
and funding mechanism required to deliver the radio to the military
end-users.
Interoperability for a first responder participant requires that public
safety agencies (fire, police, medical) have direct communications
when they operate with one another, across disciplines and jurisdictions.
In order to facilitate this communication goal, agencies are
looking at non-military waveform standards such as P25.
Using a standardized suite of waveform standards allows radio sets
manufactured by different vendors to communicate. Ultimately, porting
the P25 waveform to JTRS radios will allow military organizations
to interoperate with state and local agencies in time of an emergency
such as a disaster relief scenario.
“The JTRS radios will host the ported P25 waveform as well as
JTRS networking and current force military waveforms such as SIN-
CGARS, EPLRS, HF, Link-16 or UHF SATCOM,” North added. “With
all these waveforms on the same radio, we can provide direct communications
to P25-equipped first responders, as well as routing and
retransmitting messages from the P25 net to current force radios. This
provides a tremendous capability for unit commanders equipped with
JTRS radios.”
The UCSD division of Calit2 and Calit2’s division at UC Irvine
together house more than 1,000 researchers across the two campuses,
organized around more than 50 projects. With a focus on discovery
and innovation at the intersection of science, engineering and the arts,
Calit2 constitutes one of the largest multidisciplinary research centers
in the nation. Research is conducted on the future of telecommunications
and information technology and using these advancing technologies
to transform a range of applications.
The Calit2/JTRS Software Defined Radio (SDR) Project is a collaborative
research effort supported by JPEO JTRS involving SCA SDR
platforms for development and porting of SDR waveforms, creating
a high-performance amplifier test-bed, and hosting the JTRS Open
Information Repository. More information is available at http://jtrs.
calit2.net. ✯
www.MIT-kmi.com

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Highband Networking Radio
Scores in WIN-T Testing
Harris has received a contract update from Lockheed Martin to
continue development work on wireless networking technology under
Increment 3 of the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T)
program. Harris successfully completed recent major testing and evaluation
milestones on the Army’s WIN-T program and is continuing work on
the next generation of military tactical communications systems. Harris
is a member of the WIN-T team led by General Dynamics and Lockheed
Martin. WIN-T Increment 3 significantly extends the capabilities of the
current Increment 2 Line-Of-Sight (LOS) wireless networking technology.
Harris is responsible for key LOS radio system components for Increment 3
that, once awarded, will extend the scope of the Harris work on WIN-T and
bring the company’s total award value to more than $130 million from
2007 to 2012. The follow-on production program is expected to include
hundreds of systems per year between 2012 and 2021. Harris successfully
completed the development test and engineering field test with General
Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and the WIN-T program office using the
Highband Networking Radio (HNR) at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. This is a major
milestone in the WIN-T Increment 2 program, which precedes Increment
3 in the successive technology deployment strategy of the WIN-T program.
An order for low rate initial production using the HNR is projected to be
placed by WIN-T later this year.
Mobile Computers Meet Tough
New Environmental Standards
Panasonic Computer Solutions, manufacturer of Toughbook mobile
computers, has announced its fully rugged line and Toughbook U1 are the
first to be certified by an independent third-party test lab to meet the newer
and more demanding MIL-STD-810G standard for environmental condi-
tions, which was issued in October 2008 and sup supersedes MIL-STD-810F. The
Toughbook 30 laptop, Toughbook 19
convertible ta tablet and Toughbook U1
ultra mobile handheld replacement
m have passed 20 critical
MIL-STD-810G M
tests applicable
c to mobile computers,
as a well as IP65 ingress
protection p
and ASTM
D4169-04 D vehicle vibration
tests. t Testing was conducted
and a certified by an internationally
n respected thirdparty
p laboratory.
22 | MIT 13.8
Enterprise Buy Includes
Next-Generation Workstation
The Air Force has selected HP
to provide new HP workstation and
desktop PCs as part of its enterprise
IT purchase program. This latest
award builds on the more than
400,000 units of HP client products
deployed by the Air Force. The
award is part of the desktop, laptop
and servers Quarterly Enterprise
Buy (QEB). In compliance with Air
Force requirements, HP will include
customized security configurations
that meet strict specifications and tests. Air Force facilities worldwide will use an array
of HP platforms, including HP workstations and mobile workstations that combine
sleek style and energy efficiency with high-grade functionality. The QEB award will
include the HP xw4600 workstation, which combines next-generation performance
technologies into a powerful, flexible and reliable single processor socket workstation.
Dual PCIe X16 Gen2 graphics interfaces provide up to four times the performance of
previous graphics interfaces, along with the ability to power multiple displays without
compromise. In addition, the HP EliteBook 8730w mobile workstation will be delivered
in both standard and customized secure configurations that meet the Air Force’s secure
product category requirements.
Voice Core Solutions Receive
Security Accreditation
The PacStar 6800 Small End Office (SMEO) and the PacStar 6300
Deployable Voice Exchange have received information assurance accreditation
by the Defense IA/Security Accreditation Working Group. The solutions
have also received interoperability certification by the Joint Interoperability
Test Command, and consequently the Defense Information Systems Agency
placed them on the Approved Product List. Both solutions are designed to be
the voice core of the network infrastructure for the U.S. military around the
world. The PacStar 6800 and 6300 solutions enable the military to connect to
the Defense Switched Network (DSN), eliminating cumbersome two-step analog
to IP network complexity. Also, the PacStar 6800 is the only y SMEO voice switch
based on the Cisco Unified Communications
platform that is accredited for the DSN. With
proven Cisco hardware at its core, the PacStar
6800 and 6300 solutions were designed to meet
the “everything over IP” mandate of the Office
of the Secretary of Defense, which requires that
the military shift to fully IP-capable solutions.
These solutions provide a common IP communications
platform from the military base to
the battlefield.
Jamie Finn: jfinn@pacstar.com
www.MIT-kmi.com

Information Assurance Experts Support Afghanistan Security
Trace Systems has won a contract with the Army’s 7th Theater Tactical
Signal Brigade for information assurance subject matter experts in support
of the Joint Network Operations Control Center-Afghanistan (JNCC-A). The
JNCC-A is the NETOPS execution arm of the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan J6 and
is responsible for the operation and maintenance of communications and
computer networks throughout the Afghanistan area of operations. Trace
Systems will provide IA subject matter experts based at Bagram Airfield,
Joint Forces Test
New Encryption Technology
Unisys has been awarded a task order to support the testing and evaluation of
a new encryption and “bit-splitting” technology at the U.S. Joint Forces Command
(USJFCOM) to ensure that data is secure and readily available to those authorized
to view it. The project will test the Unisys Stealth Solution for Network, an innovative
secure information-sharing solution for government and commercial organizations.
Under the one-year task order, awarded through the Defense Information
Systems Agency’s Encore II contract, Unisys will provide technical support at
the USJFCOM site in Norfolk, Va., and at its subordinate Joint Transformation
Command for Intelligence site in Suffolk, Va.
The commands will test the ability of cryptographic bit-splitting technology to
help converge various Department of Defense Global Information Grid networks
operating at different security levels into a single network infrastructure where
virtualized communities of interest can co-exist, while still maintaining complete
isolation from each other. The technology would help protect each community’s
data, allowing the controlled sharing of information between communities, while
dramatically reducing infrastructure and associated costs.
Integrated Application
Complements Multi-Directional
Data Transfer
The latest release of PuriFile, the file inspection application from ITT, has been
successfully integrated with Trusted Computer Solutions’ (TCS) SecureOffice Trusted
Gateway System product. The PuriFile technology allows for enhanced file inspection
preceding the Trusted Gateway System’s rapid, multi-directional transfer of any data
type between numerous security levels, such as unclassified, secret, secret releasable,
and top secret/sensitive compartmented information networks. ITT’s PuriFile software
performs deep analysis of various Microsoft Office file formats, and discovers information
within and about files that would otherwise go unnoticed in typical review
processes. TCS’ Trusted Gateway System product is the most recent in a continuing
series of government and commercial systems to update to ITT’s latest PuriFile application
for deep content inspection of files before transfer. The PuriFile inspection tool
exists as a stand-alone product, but the availability of an application programming
interface allows it to be easily incorporated into a wide variety of transfer and inspection
systems. PuriFile also provides additional tools and mechanisms for easy integration
into existing active directory systems for user identification.
Stacey Winn: swinn@trustedcs.com
Afghanistan. Residing within the JNCC-A, Trace Systems will support network
defense throughout the Combined Joint Operational Area-Afghanistan on a
24/7 basis, including the deployment and monitoring of host-based security
systems, enterprise anti-virus management systems, intrusion prevention
systems, and other applications that identify and counter unauthorized
applications, rogue systems and malicious content.
Jeff Barrows: jsb@tracesystems.com
Contract Funds Prophet
Advanced SIGINT System
The Linkabit division of L-3 Communications has been awarded a
contract by General Dynamics C4 Systems in support of the Army’s Prophet
Enhanced program. This initial contract is valued at $46.6 million and
includes delivery order pricing for six years. The Prophet Enhanced system
is a tactical signals intelligence system that provides battlefield commanders
increased electronic intelligence and situational awareness. It is the Army’s
ground-based sensor system to securely and accurately detect, identify, locate
and direction find radio frequency emitters in the commander’s tactical area
of interest. Under this contract, L-3 will produce, test and deliver Prophet
Enhanced (PE) B-kits, PE A-kits and associated spares in support of the
program. In addition to providing a technically advanced intelligence
resource, the Prophet Enhanced kit will also utilize mature communications
provided by L-3 Linkabit. This technology provides the Army a wideband
beyond line-of-sight communications capability.
Brian Domian: brian.domian@l-3com.com
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 23

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Q&A
Becoming the Army’s Single IT Service Provider
Network Unifier
Major General Susan S. Lawrence
Commanding General
Army Network Enterprise Technology
Command
9th Signal Command (Army)
Major General Susan S. Lawrence enlisted in the Army in 1972
and received her commission as a second lieutenant in June 1979.
Prior to assuming command of Army Network Enterprise Technology
Command/9th Signal Command (Army) (NETCOM/9th SC (A)),
she served as commanding general, 5th Signal Command, and U.S.
Army, Europe and Seventh Army chief information officer/assistant
chief of staff, G-6.
Lawrence has served as a platoon leader in the 67th Signal Battalion,
Fort Gordon, Ga.; aide-de-camp to the commanding general,
Army Signal Center, Fort Gordon; military assistant at the Defense
Communications Agency; platoon leader in Korea under Eighth U.S.
Army, 122nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division; executive officer to the
commanding general, Army Signal Center; company commander of
B Company, 67th Signal Battalion; S-2 and S-3 officer of the 67th
Signal Battalion; branch chief to the U.S. Army Information Systems
Engineering Command-Europe; deputy G-6, 2nd Armor Division;
executive officer,142nd Signal Battalion; force development action
officer, Washington, D.C.; and chief, Signal Career Assignments
Branch, Officer Personnel Management Directorate.
In addition, Lawrence commanded the 123rd Signal Battalion,
3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga., which deployed in support
of Operation Desert Thunder. She commanded the 7th Signal Brigade,
5th Signal Command, prior to serving as chief of staff and vice
director, J-6, Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. She also served as
the director, command and control, communications and computer
systems, J-6, U.S. Central Command.
Lawrence received a bachelor’s degree from Campbell University
in North Carolina, where she received her commission, and holds
a master’s degree in information systems management from the
University of Georgia.
Lawrence was interviewed by MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly.
Q: What are the goals of the Global Network Enterprise Construct
(GNEC)?
A: As you know, the Army is facing a wide range of threats. They are
synchronous, asynchronous, worldwide and persistent. The GNEC
is our Army’s strategy for aligning and transforming our network
assets—our people, equipment and policies—to meet these challenges.
The GNEC will deliver a global, standardized, protected and
effective network enterprise that supports the needs of the warfighter
in joint, international, intergovernmental and multinational operations.
The reason for transforming to the GNEC is obvious: We live
in a different world than we did in the 1980s and 1990s. When I
was a young signal officer, the focus was on the forward deployment
of forces. The new reality is that 80 percent of Army forces
are CONUS-based. This means that our soldiers are called to
deploy with little to no notice, and the Army’s relevance in these
conflicts will be judged by its responsiveness and expeditionary
capability. The Army must be ready to fight upon arrival. The key
to that is ensuring that we can provide reliable network services
to our soldiers anytime, anywhere. The GNEC will allow us to do
that by providing a seamless network that is universally available
and accessible to the warfighter from home station, to the area of
operations and back again.
Q: What is the role of 9th Signal Command (Army) in implementing
the Army’s GNEC?
A: The 9th SC (A), in partnership with the CIO/G6, the PEO community
and the CIOs of the Army’s various commands and agencies, is
leading the march to make the GNEC a reality. Our job is to use the
GNEC strategy to deliver a global network enterprise from the desktop
to the foxhole, improving defensive capabilities and effectiveness
while at the same time gaining resource efficiencies through a set
of common standards and configurations. Once implementation is
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 25

complete, we will serve as the Army’s single information technology
service provider.
We already started working on this: Right now, we are in the process
of obtaining full visibility—or aggregating—of our network assets.
Once that is complete, we will move to federate and ultimately consolidate,
where it makes sense, these assets into a single network. We’ll
make the best use of collected data and systems by way of a federation
that employs common standards that will allow organizations to manage
their own systems and networks. This is a big job. The collection of
disparate networks we have to consolidate consists of a variety of new,
nearly-new and legacy systems.
Another part of our role is to improve overall network security. One
way we will do this is through the consolidation of points of access.
We currently have 400-plus points of access to the network in CONUS
alone. We plan to reduce that to between 12 and 15 entry points and,
over time, to apply this same model to the worldwide network. This will
immediately enhance our network defense posture. At the same time
we’re operating in this federation, we are going to standardize our assets
and achieve a common technical and operational picture to ensure that
universal capabilities and services are delivered seamlessly across the
enterprise network, and if juggling all that isn’t enough, we’re going to
modernize our systems and operations while doing everything else. So
these activities are not necessarily going to be performed sequentially.
As a matter of fact, we expect them to happen in parallel.
At the end of the day, while the job is hard, our goal is simple: to
bring about a unified network enterprise that provides soldiers with
a single identity from home station to AOR and back, manage the
network so that our forces have the capability to access data from
anywhere, at anytime, and provide our warfighters the information
superiority they need to accomplish their mission.
Q: How will the creation of Network Service Centers [NSC] and Area
Processing Centers [APC] change the way the Army conducts its
network operations?
A: The NSCs will enable always-on, real-time access to the network
and network services globally. The kind of network service I’m talking
about is what you find in everyday life. You don’t even think twice
when you make a call on your cell phone—you expect, and get, a connection.
That is the type of access that the NSCs will provide.
The APCs are key components of the larger NSC construct. We’ve
already established them in the European and CONUS theaters, and
are in the process of doing the same in the Pacific. They will enable us
to provide better service in terms of data and applications, as well as
reduce the number of access points on the network, ultimately reducing
the cost of ownership for information technology.
While we’re on the subject of centers, let’s not forget our Theater
Network Operation Security Centers [TNOSC] or the Army Global
Network Operations Security Center [AGNOSC]. These organizations
are the focal point of network operations for the NSC. There are six
TNOSCs, operating globally on a 24/7 basis. Along with the AGNOSC,
they serve on the front line in detecting, analyzing and defusing
threats to the network.
Q: What do you see as the biggest challenges involved in implementing
the GNEC?
A: As it turns out, our biggest challenge hasn’t been technical; it is
cultural. That’s understandable. The current architecture of having
26 | MIT 13.8
networks support single organizations or regions has been in place for
years. That worked well for a time, but times have changed, and most
importantly, our Army is now network dependent, requiring universal
access and availability regardless of location or operational requirement.
We have to be smarter, faster and better than we’ve been in the
past if we hope to meet the operational and resources challenges of
the 21st century.
There are efficiencies and economies of GNEC implementation
that will tremendously benefit any organization—not just providing
information superiority, but also saving time and money spent due to
outdated processes and redundancies. We’ve done the math, and these
savings increase as time goes on, so that as expenditures for maintenance
and repair of networks infrastructure dissipate, that money can
be spent elsewhere, addressing the specific needs and mission of an
organization. Our challenge is in getting that word out—helping our
community see both the necessity and the benefits of transforming to
a true network enterprise.
Q: How will the GNEC enable or directly support the warfighters’
expeditionary tenants?
A: In the past, warfighters were network enabled. The network was a
force multiplier. Today those same warriors are network dependent;
the enterprise has become part and parcel of how we fight. The GNEC
will provide that network enterprise both at home station and in the
area of operations.
In previous conflicts, we would deploy an initial communications
capability to the battlefield, and then plan for the network to catch
up. We can’t do this anymore. Under the GNEC, the network will
never leave the warfighter. It will remain with the soldier through
all phases of operations, providing the single network identity I mentioned
earlier, as well as the always-on access to intelligence, logistics,
fires and other information necessary in today’s world. This will free
up additional time for training and contingency planning while in
transit, reduce disruptions in battle command, and provide units on
the ground with always-on, real-time access to the network. When
the warfighter is operationally engaged, he will be better prepared and
informed, have greater situational awareness, be able to react within
shorter decision cycles and as a result be more lethal than at any time
in the past. GNEC makes that possible.
Q: How will the GNEC change the way in which 9th SC (A) and the
Army in general work with industry?
A: GNEC is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the Army to standardize
our environment through secure hardware configurations
and common toolsets. For example, the Army’s standard desktop
configuration, the Army Golden Master, incorporates the federal,
Department of Defense, and Army security configurations. Industry
partners, both hardware vendors and software developers, must
understand these configurations and build their products to work in
our secure environment and, at the same time, with open standards
to ensure interoperability. Federal and DoD acquisition regulations
actually prevent the Army from purchasing hardware and software
that cannot operate in the secure environment.
The Army has always worked with industry on customizing
solutions to meet our operational needs. However, the fast pace at
which technology changes requires the Army and industry to work
together so that we can influence changes to hardware and software
www.MIT-kmi.com

capabilities before they are released to the public. In some cases, the
Army leverages enterprise software agreements to achieve this capability.
For example, our software agreement with Microsoft enabled us
to collectively develop a Vista activation solution that ultimately saved
the Army millions in hardware costs. DoD and other federal agencies
now use this activation solution as well. We will also continue to
increase our cooperation with industry in this area.
The transformation of the network into a true global enterprise
will also change our relationship with business. Over the years,
industry has provided IT services to individual commands and organizations
in an organic manner with proprietary solutions. This has
sometimes resulted in duplicative and overlapping services that are
not interoperable and are non-standard from an enterprise perspective.
This limits our ability to share information, conduct joint operations,
collaborate, and defend our networks. We will look to industry
to view the Army in global terms and craft solutions that meet enterprise
requirements. The relationship will be between the IT industry
and the enterprise, not between industry and individual commands.
Q: In what ways will industry need to change in order to achieve the
greatest mutual benefits from GNEC?
A: The GNEC is a paradigm shift from how the Army previously
addressed our technical and user challenges. Industry can assist
by forming more teaming arrangements to help us achieve greater
capabilities. The Army needs integrated, end-to-end solutions, not the
standard one-toolset-per-capability approach that is used today. This
is extremely important for the GNEC, which incorporates the sustaining
base and the tactical Army. A single solution must span that user
base and provide equal capability.
Industry can also benefit from understanding our environment
and becoming a partner with us. We want industry to continue to
innovate, with regard to solutions and services that we need in order
for us to succeed. We want industry to identify savings and efficiencies
that we can make as we go through our GNEC enterprise transformation.
We also want to adopt best practices from industry on how
large commercial enterprises manage their own IT infrastructure,
and apply those principles to the Army. Another area that industry
can help with is to ensure that the solutions they propose can scale
to Army enterprise level. Often, we are finding that solutions do not
scale to the Army’s large, complex environment and wide geographic
base. Also, industry needs to understand that our tactical forces operate
in austere environments and require special consideration when
targeting solutions for this problem set.
Q: The role, and even name, of directorates of information management
[DOIMs] will be changing under a re-organization currently
under way. How will this change operations, and what benefits do
you see as a result?
A: The renaming of DOIMs to Network Enterprise Centers [NECs] is
a direct function of GNEC implementation. NECs at each installation
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 27

are transforming their internal processes to align with this GNEC
model. The advantages of the NEC transformation are eliminating
network capability gaps for units preparing, deploying and transitioning,
and dramatically improving our network defense posture
by applying globally consistent network security policies and procedures.
This yields economies and efficiencies while improving
effectiveness and enhancing our ability to share information with
joint forces and coalition partners. This transformation is occurring
in all Army theaters. What’s ultimately behind the change to
NECs is a new alignment of command and control responsibility
and an enterprise approach to the security and management of
the network, which improves capabilities and supports operations
through all phases of the fight.
Q: Since the annual LandWarNet conference has become one of
the biggest technology-focused military conferences, and because
of your command’s involvement in this conference each year,
how do you feel this conference helps DoD and the Army? What
came out of this year’s conference?
A: Because of its focus on joint and coalition operations, the Land-
WarNet conference is DoD’s premier C4IT conference. It is an
important opportunity for our community to anchor our successes,
to share our lessons learned, and to chart out a course for the
future. The conference puts leaders and operators, program managers,
staff and industry in the same room to hear first-hand operator
requirements, issues, concerns and timelines. Likewise, operators
hear about what technologies are working their way to them.
From the 9th SC (A) perspective, the annual conference is also
an important opportunity to shape the discussion of critical operational
subjects. Starting with the theme of the 2009 event, Land-
WarNet—A Global Network Enterprise Enabling Full Spectrum
Operations for the Joint Warfighter, and through our after-action
report, our entire focus continues to be on generating and capturing
discussion on what matters to the operating and generating
forces that better enables their mission. My expectations each year
are to hear first-hand from conferees about what they need to fight
the war, and from industry what they can bring to the table to meet
our global interoperability and collaboration requirements more
securely, effectively and efficiently.
Q: What is your strategy for strengthening cybersecurity under
GNEC?
A: Ensuring a safe, secure network is fundamental to making
the GNEC work. We’ve developed a comprehensive strategy that
focuses on enhancing our defensive capabilities, improving the
sustainment of programs, working with industry to develop more
effective and rapid detection and response capabilities, and partnering
with the military intelligence community to improve predictive
intelligence. This strategy will allow us to win the Army’s
cybersecurity fight.
Q: What are the key cybersecurity initiatives of other parts of
your command? How will your work in this area interact with the
new U.S. Cyber Command?
A: The cyberthreat is real, and the U.S. Cyber Command is an
important step in confronting that threat. The Army is currently
28 | MIT 13.8
performing a mission analysis of how it will provide forces in
support of the newly formed Cyber Command. 9th SC (A) will
be a critical part of this solution. In the meantime, we remain
involved in cyber-operations on a daily basis through our
AGNOSC and TNOSCs, and the development of expanded network
operations [NetOps] capabilities.
I discussed our TNOSCs and the AGNOSC a bit earlier, but I
can’t overstate their importance on the cyberfront. The TNOSCs
and AGNOSC are the network’s guardians. The work they do on
a daily basis to detect, analyze and overcome the threat to theater
and global network operations is central to our maintaining
information dominance. Additionally, the TNOSCs also provide
NetOps and service desk functions—ensuring the seamless
delivery of standardized enterprise services—while the AGNOSC
serves as the Army’s operational arm into the world of the Joint
Task Force-Global Network Operations. Together, they represent
the Army’s key LandWarNet cyberdefense capability.
Speaking of NetOps, and its role in the GNEC and cyberoperations,
I should mention that the Army made an important
initial investment in NetOps capabilities during the 2009
midyear review. This investment provides significant resources
to close computer network defense gaps in the network and to
standardize critical network management tools that facilitate the
further federation and consolidation of the LandWarNet. These
tools, together with our other efforts, will enhance our ability
to see the network, know what’s happening on it, and rapidly
respond to threats.
Q: What are the elements of your command doing to support the
stepped-up U.S. efforts in Afghanistan?
A: We don’t anticipate a change in personnel requirements but
do plan to increase our support of current mission requirements
through commercialization and infrastructure improvements.
The 9th SC (A) currently manages commercial satellite terminals,
technical control facilities, and data network equipment
at key strategic locations in Afghanistan. The program manager
defensewide transmission systems/program manager defense
communications systems-Southwest Asia has responsibility for
Operation Enduring Freedom [OEF] and Operation Iraqi Freedom
[OIF] commercialization implementation, as part of an ongoing
commercialization effort aimed at relieving the requirement for
tactical OEF rotational units and equipment. Operational control
and direction is provided by 335th Theater Signal Command, with
project oversight provided by 9th SC (A). The Total Army Communications-Southwest
Asia Central Asia Africa [TAC-SWACAA] contract
continues to provide operations and maintenance support
for communications and information systems under the purview
of the 160th Signal Brigade in the CENTCOM area of operations.
Currently, the number of TAC-SWACAA contractors supporting
OEF and OIF covers 51 sites.
Several forward operating bases in Afghanistan were deemed
enduring sites and are in the design and implementation
stages to support strategic communications, releasing tactical
elements for other missions. The new C4 facilities at International
Security Assistance Forces and New Kabul Compound
and scheduled upgrade of C4 facilities at Camp Phoenix and
Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan will give warfighters communications
expansion capabilities for current and future growth.
www.MIT-kmi.com

Meanwhile, the completion of the Fixed Regional Hub Node at
Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, provides up to 48 links of Frequency Division
Multiple Access and Time Division Multiplex Access satellite
connectivity and 12 links of mounted battle command on the
move and airborne command and control to support warfighter
communications in Afghanistan. These significant changes will
greatly enhance war fighting efforts.
Q: What do you see as the most effective ways of responding to
the growing bandwidth/spectrum crunch, especially related to
UAV surveillance and imagery?
A: Spectrum really has been a force multiplier/enabler. Due to
technological advances, we are able to use spectrum-dependent
systems to meet our mission goals and, at the same time, keep
our warfighters out of harm’s way. Our challenge for the future
is to ensure we have the proper requirements for our future
spectrum-dependent systems.
Let’s take our ISR systems on UAVs, for example. The
warfighter wants streaming video in order to have real-time
situational awareness. We must be smart in our methods
for meeting that requirement. Capabilities exist to provide
streaming video using systems with an 18 MHz bandwidth.
When you compare this bandwidth to that of a typical broadcast
television bandwidth, which is below 6 MHz wide, we see that
smart design and efficient use of the spectrum can be achieved.
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The key is understanding the requirements, and looking at
spectrally efficient methods of meeting those requirements.
We also need to question whether all requirements are valid
and the best use of our limited spectrum. We must approach
development of spectrum-dependent capabilities the same way
we are approaching the construct of our network—on an enterprise
level. We must prioritize our requirements to determine
the smartest approach for an enterprise solution. In taking this
approach, the Army will realize gains in spectrum efficiency
while meeting our war fighting mission. We can’t develop
spectrum-dependent systems without taking into consideration
all of the other spectrum-dependent systems in its operational
environment. By taking this approach, the Army is able to realize
mission goals with far fewer interference issues.
This is not to say we don’t need to continue our research
for further advances in technologies. The Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency [DARPA] is studying and developing
methods of spectrum-sharing technologies. The Army is very
interested in a spectrum-sharing technology called dynamic
spectrum access, which DARPA has shown great strides in
developing. This technology has the potential of increasing our
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www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 29

DEFENSE AGENCIES AND INDUSTRY MOVE TO PROTECT
THE VITAL “TELEPHONE BOOK” THAT LOOKS UP THE IP
ADDRESSES OF WEBSITES.
BY PETER BUXBAUM
MIT CORRESPONDENT
BUXBAUMP@KMIMEDIAGROUP.COM
A new mandate for defense and other
federal agencies is focusing attention on the
security of the Internet’s Domain Name System
(DNS)—the vital “telephone book” that
looks up the IP addresses of Websites.
The DNS was compromised last year by
a “cache poisoning attack” in which someone
with permission to interact with a DNS
server succeeded in modifying the answers
DNS provided for lookups of a domain name.
The result was that lookup requests were
directed to the attacker’s site rather than the
legitimate site.
These kinds of attacks are
perpetrated by criminals who
lure Internet users to fake
sites where they can harvest
credentials for illicit use on
the real sites. Cyberwarfare is
also a known venue for DNSrelated
threats, and hackers
have launched denial-of-service
attacks against DNS servers.
“The consequences of
a successful cache-poisoning
attack on DNS servers
are so dire that describing
them inevitably sounds like
hyperbole,” commented
Cricket Liu, vice president
of architecture at Infoblox,
a provider of DNS appliances.
“Virtually every nontrivial
transaction that takes
place on the Internet relies
on DNS, so in a real sense,
30 | MIT 13.8
Cricket Liu
Victor Larson
widespread vulnerability to cache poisoning
means the end of trust on the Internet.”
“DNS is a hierarchical system with many
redundant servers,” explained Victor Larson,
director of research and development at
VirnetX, a provider of Internet security technologies.
DNS also features caching servers
to provide massive scale and redundancy for
the critical service of responding to requests
for name lookups.
Root DNS servers provide information
on global top level domains (gTLDs) such
as .com, .net, .org, .gov, and .mil. The DNS
servers for a gTLD provide
information on servers for the
next level of domain names.
For example, a .mil server provides
information on where
a server exists with information
on darpa.mil. The owner
of darpa.mil provides a server
with name lookups in that
domain and, optionally, for
additional name servers for its
subdomains.
“The reality today is that
all these names in all those
databases are kept in an unsecure,
unencrypted manner,”
said Ram Mohan, executive
vice president and chief technology
officer at Afilias USA, a
provider of Internet infrastructure
solutions.
That means that traditional
network security mechanisms
are of no avail when it comes
to compromises of DNS. “You can put in a
firewall or a packet inspector at the server
level, and it wouldn’t mean anything because
you never get to the site in the first place
because DNS lied,” noted Joe Gersch, chief
operating officer of Secure64 Software. “What
is the point of putting in that kind of security
if the basic addressing mechanism fails you?”
SECURITY EXTENSIONS
There is a solution, however, called
Domain Name System Security Extensions
(DNSSEC). The Department of Defense and
the rest of the federal government have been
in the process of implementing DNSSEC
in the months leading up to a September
30 deadline to secure the top level of their
domain hierarchies. Worldwide, only a few
thousand of the many millions of existing
Websites have thus far been secured with
DNSSEC, according to Mohan.
“Experts agree that the best long-term
approach for fixing the DNS system is to
get a cryptographic solution like DNSSEC
deployed,” said Larson. “In order for DNS-
SEC to provide complete protection of the
transactions at all server levels, they need to
be signed using DNSSEC.”
DNSSEC is a protocol for DNS security
extensions that provides a special cryptographic
element to ensure that DNS traffic
does not get hijacked. When an Internet user
requests a particular entry in the global
directory, the server first checks whether
the requester has the correct key to open
the lock for that particular record. If not,
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the system does not provide
an answer.
“It is a fairly straightforward
mechanism,” explained
Gersch. “DNSSEC uses digital
cryptographic techniques to
create a digital signature. It
compares the signature to the
data sent. If it looks good, it
will let the data through to the
user’s computer. If the server
gets a bogus response, it will
come back and tell the user it
can’t access the site because
the signatures don’t match.”
DNSSEC is designed so
that a key for a domain is
signed by the next level up the
chain. For example, if disa.
mil has a key for signing its
names, that key is signed by
.mil, and .mil’s key is signed
by the Internet root.
“However, since DNSSEC deployment
at all levels is going slowly,” Larson noted,
“DNSSEC can optionally be set up so that
Ram Mohan
Joe Gersch
lower level domains can provide
DNSSEC integrity without
the higher level domains
being DNSSEC compliant.”
DNSSEC was originally
designed in the 1990s as an
approach to protect DNS
information using public
key infrastructure. “It has
been an overnight sensation
15 years in the making,”
quipped Mohan. “DNSSEC
was created by the Internet
Engineering Task Force, a
global standards body. The
original idea was the DNS
trusted everybody. But by the
mid-1990s it became apparent
that the old model was
breaking because bad actors
will try to exploit the inherent
trust built into the DNS
architecture.”
A year and half ago, the standards were
finally agreed to and ratified. Afilias was one
of the first companies to convert to those
standards. In June 2009, Afilias deployed
DNSSEC to the .org domain, the world’s
largest.
“DNSSEC is important because once you
click on a link, you want to be absolutely sure
you will get there,” said Mohan. “If that does
not happen you can get hijacked somewhere
else. But a domain name that is signed with
a secure key will guarantee that you will get
where you said you want to go 100 percent
of the time.”
IMPLEMENTATION TEAM
The Defense Information Systems Agency
(DISA) is one of the focal points within DoD
for the implementation of DNSSEC. The
DoD plan calls for a phased implementation
of DNSSEC from the top down, based on
guidance issued by the Office of the Secretary
of Defense, the Joint Task Force for Global
Network Operations (JTF-GNO), a unit of U.S.
Strategic Command, and the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST).
“Responsibility for implementation is
shared across DoD,” said Fred Kopp, division
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 31

chief of the Program Executive Office Mission
Assurance within DISA’s Computer Network
Defense branch. “We are one member of the
team in implementing DNSSEC for defense
agencies and coordinating planning and
actions necessary to execute implementation
across the federal community.”
The required September 30 implementation
is for the top level domain only, Kopp
noted, with the second level due by a date
yet to be determined. In an interview this
summer, Kopp predicted that DoD would
meet the deadline for deploying DNSSEC at
the .mil level. “We are proceeding with that
implementation within DISA and are working
with the services as well,” he said.
The phased approach to the implementation
of DNSSEC means that DoD will start
applying the security extensions to the .mil
domain and then proceed to army.mil, navy.
mil, af.mil, and so on, and then to their subdomains.
“We’ll be working our way through
the hierarchy one level at a time,” said Kurt
Biernick, the lead government engineer at
DISA’s Computer Network Defense Branch.
A program to ensure the secure availability
of Websites to the population of authorized
users requires three steps, according
to Mohan. “First, add DNSSEC encryption
to domain names—both Internet Websites
as well as those domains running internally
on private networks,” he said. “Second,
upgrade the DNS hosting system in such a
way as to provide a secure response to DNS-
SEC request. Third, work with technology
providers to ensure that domain names with
the DNSSEC key are widely available and
propagated on machines around the world
so that one or more sets of attacks on the
infrastructure cannot take them down.”
Gersch said he has been working with
NIST to train and educate large numbers
of government departments and personnel
on how to make DNSSEC work. “There has
been a huge educational effort in the last
number of years among the many departments,
agencies and bureaus on procedures
and best practices,” he said. “Now they are
starting with their deployment efforts.”
DISA has reviewed some commercially
available automated tools to help DoD
with configuration management and the
implementation of the DNSSEC protocol
extensions. “Part of what is difficult in the
implementation of DNSSEC is in deciding
on the cryptographic keys as well as
maintaining and modifying them,” said
Kopp. “Manipulation of the keys is one of
the areas in which industry has to provide
32 | MIT 13.8
tools to help make this a manageable
process. Different keys have to be assigned
to different network zones, and they must
be changed periodically in order to maintain
security when data is transferred from one
portion of the network to another.”
All of this is complex and requires expertise,
Gersch said, adding, “It can be a pain in
the neck if your staff turns over and you lose
the recipe.” It can be a major undertaking, in
other words, to be periodically reassigning
keys to the various network zones.
AUTOMATED ASSIGNMENT
Secure64 provides a technology aimed at
alleviating two of the major challenges associated
with maintaining DNSSEC standards:
automating the assignment and reassignment
of keys and securing the cryptography
associated with them.
“You want to prevent someone from
stealing the cryptographic keys,” said Gersch.
“In our solution the keys are locked tight in
a cryptographic module. You can issue a single
command, ‘Do DNSSEC,’ instead of an
operator manually doing and redoing each
zone. Implementing DNSSEC operations
can be as simple as adding a single statement
to the system configuration file.”
The Secure64 product, known as
Secure64 DNS Signer, rests on three enabling
technologies: the SourceT micro operating
system, the Secure64 DNS Authority
server, and a hardware trusted platform
module (TPM) device. The SourceT micro
operating system was designed by Secure64
to be immune to malware and rootkits—
programs designed to hide the fact that a
system has been compromised.
“Rather than relying on a general-purpose
operating system that must be hardened,”
Gersch said, “SourceT is designed
specifically for security and performance.”
The Secure64 DNS Authority server is
a dedicated authoritative DNS name server
that runs on the HP Integrity rx2660 hardware
platform. The TPM executes secure
cryptographic functions, including seeding
the random number generator and
generating a storage root key unique for
each machine to protect subkeys and other
encryption material.
VirnetX takes a somewhat different
approach. The VirnetX Gabriel product
focuses on securing private and semi-private
destinations on the Internet. “DNSSEC provides
good security for large public and
portal sites,” said Larson. “VirnetX Gabriel
secure name services provide a unified
approach for providing DNS services to
authenticated users where the response is
dependent on the identity of the requester
so your network location is only available to
those that you want to reach you. One very
useful attribute of the Gabriel design is that
it is much harder for an attacker to attack
what it cannot find.”
The second major feature of Gabriel
secure name services is that following the
secure lookup of DNS information, it automatically
forms a secure connection with
the requested name, and provides services
for this secure connection even if both parties
are not directly on the Internet.
A third Gabriel feature, secure name
services, provides support for dynamic
addresses. “Legacy DNS fundamentally has
a ‘pull’ architecture,” said Larson. “You can
force legacy DNS to support dynamic IP
addresses, but legacy DNS wasn’t designed
particularly well to handle them. VirnetX
Gabriel secure name services has a ‘push’
architecture, where changes in information
are pushed when they occur.”
While the currently conceived timelines
for implementing DNSSEC are achievable
by DoD, as yet there is no specific timeline
for implementing DNSSEC across the entire
DoD network infrastructure, Kopp noted.
The department will be looking to implement
automated tools, he added, especially
as the deployment proceeds down the network
hierarchy.
“We believe that the way we are attacking
the problem is the way to go,” he said,
“in terms of identifying mechanisms, tools
and processes to try to make it easier for
those who need to do this and also to avail
training to them to provide an understanding
of DNSSEC and to keep the learning
curve up.
“Deploying DNSSEC will make it much
more difficult to hijack traffic meant for
government domains,” Kopp added. “It will
make our services more secure.”
Infoblox also supports DNSSEC in its
line of purpose-built, security-hardened
appliances for secure, highly reliable and
manageable DNS services, among others.
The latest shipping version of Infoblox
NIOS software has built-in support for
DNSSEC. ✯
Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at
harrisond@kmimediagroup.com.
For more information related to this subject,
search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.
www.MIT-kmi.com

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Information technology vendors providing software as a service
(SaaS) are attracting growing revenues, as well as increasing interest
from military organizations such as the Defense Information Systems
Agency (DISA) and the Air Force Personnel Center.
The fact that the SaaS market is expanding demonstrates two
things, analysts say—that SaaS is a concept that has begun to catch
on, and that IT buyers are attracted by its value proposition. At the
same time, studies also make clear that SaaS is still attracting only a
small sliver of total IT dollars.
SaaS, like the broader and related concept of cloud computing,
posits that users can access and run software applications—from
enterprise resource planning to customer relationship management
and even network security applications—remotely over the network,
from someone else’s shared infrastructure. The same applies, under
the umbrella of cloud computing, to other IT operations, such as database
management and data storage.
Organizations accessing applications from a remote, shared infrastructure
enjoy some obvious advantages. They don’t have to invest
in their own hardware to run the application nor devote IT resources
to hiring personnel to manage it. The software is updated automatically
and remotely by the service provider. The overall costs of such
an arrangement are much lower than in a traditional, on-premise
software implementation.
On the other hand, using a remote infrastructure shared by other
users presents some problems. The ability to customize software is
gone. More important are the security questions: What assurances
are there that an organization’s proprietary data will not be compromised?
These security considerations apply all the more in the military
environment, where organizations are legally obligated under statutes
and regulations, to say nothing of national security considerations,
to lock down their systems and data. For example, military networks
must comply with the requirements of the Federal Information System
Management Act and National Institute of Standards and Technology
guidelines on data encryption and must receive certification and
accreditation before they can go live.
SECURITY OBSTACLES
These security considerations represent a major obstacle to the
adoption of a SaaS model in both the commercial and government
34 | MIT 13.8
Servings
Software of
AS SOFTWARE SOOFTWARE
AS A SERVICE POPULARITY
GROWS, OWS PROVIDERS TAKE INNOVATIVE STEPS TO
ADDRESS THE MILITARY’S SECURITY CONCERNS.
BY PETER BUXBAUM
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MIT MI MIT CORRESPONDENT
CO CORR RRES ES E PO POND ND NDEN ENT
BUXBAUMP@KMIMEDIAGROUP.COM
BY PET ET E ER BUX B UX UXBA BA B UM
MI MIT CO CORR RRES ES E PO P ND NDEN EN ENT
marketplaces. If SaaS has been a hard sell in the commercial world,
it has been that much harder within the U.S. government and military.
Some inroads have been made, however, and SaaS providers
have taken some innovative approaches to address the U.S. military’s
security requirements.
“Cloud computing and SaaS provide a way to spill over from
your resources and take advantage of the infrastructure provided
by a professionally managed service,” said Manoj Apte, director of
product management at Zscaler, an SaaS provider of Web security.
“It turns IT from a cottage industry, where people have to manage
every piece of a critical application themselves, to having professionals
take care of the application for you.”
SaaS allows organizations to rapidly launch applications, limit
their financial exposure, and inexpensively update software. “There
are lower upfront costs with SaaS,” said Donita Prakash, a marketing
director with Acumen Solutions, a business and technology
consulting firm. “You don’t have to build the infrastructure to run
the application or hire the staff to manage it. You can run a pilot
and, if it fails, you can simply turn it off and stop paying. That limits
an organization’s financial exposure.”
“New innovations come much more rapidly with SaaS,” added
Rick Collison, director and solution owner at Ariba Services, a
provider of automated procurement solutions. “The typical SaaS
upgrade cycle is every six months. Upgrades are free and are
included in the subscription price. With the traditional model it
may take two or three years to get new features. With SaaS, you’re
guaranteed the latest and greatest.”
SaaS can also provide organizations with flexibility in allocating
and paying for IT resources. “With traditional software implementations,
organizations buy an enterprise license even though they
don’t know how many seats they really need,” said Kevin Paschuck,
vice president for public sector business at RightNow Technologies,
a provider of customer relationship management software. “With
SaaS, an organization can pay for 100 seats initially and if in a year
from now they need another 50, they can order them and pay for
them then.”
“Some organizations have variable or seasonal requirements,”
noted Vincent Spies, chief technology officer at Voltage Security, a
provider of secure e-mail solutions. “SaaS can be dynamically provisioned
to handle extreme requirements without having to build
additional capacity within your organization.”
www.MIT-kmi.com

For potential military SaaS customers, the secu-
“Defense organizations shy away from it,” sad Apte.
rity issue can be summed up in one word: control.
“When you go into a shared infrastructure there is
“It is the biggest challenge the software community
always the possibility of some sort of leak.”
faces,” said sai Spies. “It takes a fundamentally different
view where wher data is. Before, you could physically guard
the locatio locati location where data is stored. Now it is stored in a
ISOLATED CLOUDS
place that thatt
people don’t understand anymore.”
In response to these concerns, Zscaler developed
“Military “Militta
users like the idea of a commercial offer-
the capability to create small isolated clouds that can
ing,” confirmed connf
Apte, “but not the idea of sharing
be dedicated to military organizations. Zscaler pro-
infrastructure infrastruc ct such as data centers.”
BEHIND THE FIREWALL
Manoj Apte
vides Web security applications that scan requested
Websites and block access to those that are potentially
dangerous, and maintains separate log management
and policy management for these separate,
RightNow RighttN
Technologies set out a year and a
dedicated clouds. On the other hand, Apte noted,
half ago to tto
overcome the security objections among
when new threat data becomes available, the entire
potential t ti l military SaaS customers. “They need to
cloud infrastructure, including the isolated military
know their data is secure,” said Paschuck. “Some
clouds, is automatically updated.
systems need to run on a dot-mil network.”
“It runs like a one-way street,” he said. “If we see a
The answer for RightNow was to partner with
threat evolving we notify the whole cloud about it and
DISA to run its SaaS offering behind the Department
proactively block access. But nothing inside comes
of Defense firewall. “We fit our platform right on top
out. The ability to create an isolated cloud makes it
of DISA’s,” said Paschuck. “It takes the software out
of the commercial environment, where it might be
Rick Collison
possible for military organizations to look at SaaS
and cloud computing as a feasible way to run some of
sitting next to Nike’s or Best Buy’s or Sony’s and
their IT operations.”
would create a whole bunch of issues as far as FISMA
Apte also argued that the type of application
is concerned.”
Zscaler provides, blocking access to potentially dan-
The Air Force Personnel Center is planning on
gerous Web content, is more appropriately handled
going live with a self-service personnel Website based
outside the military firewall, adding an additional
on RightNow’s SaaS offering later this year. “It is risky,
layer of security to the most sensitive and critical
and that is why this has been a project that we’ve been
systems.
looking at for the past two years,” said Colonel Glenn
The same argument applies with respect to the
Rotelle, the center’s IT director. “We had to overcome
provision of public key infrastructure (PKI) access
a lot of security challenges.”
authentication, according to Terence Spies of Voltage
Rotelle was convinced that AFPC should no longer
own and host its own Website, even though “we were
Donita Prakash
Security. PKI safeguards sensitive data by ensuring
the authentication of the identities of application
very good at it,” because that “was not the way indus-
users.
try was going.” The key SaaS benefits, for Rotelle,
“The military has a large PKI that allows them
were guaranteed Website uptime of over 99 percent
to send secure messages within its own system,” said
and automatic failover of the system to an alternate
Spies. “But in situations such as homeland security
side if DISA’s primary hosting site in Oklahoma City
operations, military units may want to send secure
were compromised.
messages to local police or fire department personnel,
“That is critical to us because of all of the services
but those people are not on the military PKI.”
that we provide our airmen,” said Rotelle. “The Web-
Voltage has performed trials with the U.S. milisite
has to be up at all times so that they can perform
tary and the U.S. and Canadian border patrols that
their HR functions.”
show that internal security applications are properly
DISA is “going to be the facility that actually hosts
the Web servers,” he added. “They’ll make sure that
Kevin Paschuck
managed tightly within the confines of an organization,
Spies said. But when cross-organizational inter-
all the equipment is up and running. The software
application will be RightNow. It’s a hardware/software
kevin.paschuck@rightnow.com changes are needed, it is useful to outsource PKI.
“This allows the military organization to exchange
partnership between DISA and RightNow.”
secure messages without having to enroll the non-military users on
Apte noted that one challenge for SaaS providers is to “create the military PKI,” he said. “It all starts with your security model. If you
applications in a totally different way.
have a policy that says you only want members of your organization to
“We know that thousands of organizations are going to be using have access to data or an application, you should have an internal key
that infrastructure,” he explained. “We needed to figure out how to management system. But if your model is to exchange data then SaaS
make sure we get economies of scale without allowing data to inter- can work pretty well.”
mingle. This has become the challenge for all cloud providers.”
The key elements to making such an arrangement work, Spies
At the same time, Apte acknowledged that the security added, is to employ a trusted, auditable third party who understands
considerations involved in moving to a professionally managed the separation of duties involved with the internal and external secu-
service within a commercial environment can be overwhelming. rity mechanisms. “There are also a lot of regulations to be complied
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 35

with,” he said. “A number of service organizations have earned regulatory
compliance certificates to perform these kinds of operations.”
VALUE PROPOSITION
In the case of commercial SaaS offerings, users share a common
infrastructure that contributes to the SaaS value proposition,
a reduction in the total cost of ownership, according to Paschuck,
of some 80 percent when compared to a traditional, on-premise
software implementation.
Apte argued that the SaaS value proposition holds true for the
kind of isolated cloud infrastructure that Zscaler has developed.
“As long as it has been architected properly, it doesn’t take away
from the value of SaaS,” he said. “The value is in the ability to spill
over into the cloud infrastructure and to be able to scale at the rate
required without having to add hardware and software inside of your
network. The hybrid model that we have devised gives the opportunity
to organizations to take advantage of this evolving mechanism.
The cost savings are comparable.”
But Paschuck said that the kind of SaaS partnership that Right-
Now has forged with DISA, which is operated on military hardware
inside the DoD firewall, shaves 50 percent off the cost savings of
a comparable commercial, shared-infrastructure implementation.
“They are still saving 40 percent on costs, and they also have the
same speed of implementation as for a commercial installation,”
he said.
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36 | MIT 13.8
“DISA has set up a private DoD cloud based on our architecture,”
Paschuck added. “All of the hardware bought and installed
has been according to NIST and FISMA guidelines. If they wanted
to run the software in a commercial facility they could have avoided
those costs, but that is not good enough for most DoD customers,
especially those running mission critical, personnel or financial
applications.”
For all of the obstacles facing SaaS, Paschuck has noticed that
“once people get educated, their reluctance to adopt this model goes
down tremendously. Ten years from now, I doubt that any application
on military systems, outside of weapons and intelligence systems,
will not be in some form of cloud computing,” he said.
Prakash was even more optimistic, saying that “in the next five
years most commercial and government applications will be moving
to the cloud.”
But Apte added, “I don’t see the military adopting cloud computing
for commercial data centers any time soon.”
There are, however, reasons to believe that SaaS and cloud computing
will grow among military users in coming years. Spies said
that the concept of proof of retrievability, which is currently being
developed, will provide assurances that encrypted data being stored
in the cloud can be retrieved. “If I give my data to the cloud I need
a way to make sure the service keeps all the data and allows it to be
retrieved,” he said.
Advances in “searchable encryption,” which allows authorized
users to search encrypted, cloud-stored data, will also be important
in encouraging users to move data to the cloud, according to Spies.
“This is important to doing productive research,” he said. “By making
data more secure, users can be provided with more functionality.”
Apte sees SaaS growth in the increasing popularity, especially
among young people in the armed services, of social networking,
so-called Web 2.0, content such as YouTube, Facebook, and Myspace.
“In the past, networks could secure themselves against vulnerabilities
simply by denying access to those kinds of sites,” he said. “But as
these sites become more popular, that approach is going to become
more difficult. The more restrictions are placed in accessing them,
the more ways will be found around them, and that increases risk. I
believe the military will have to allow access to Web 2.0 sites while
applying a security layer to them to mitigate risk.”
That security layer, in turn, Apte believes, will be supplied
increasingly by SaaS providers.
All of which present enormous challenges to SaaS vendors.
“SaaS is about managing success,” said Collison. “Traditional software
implementations are project-oriented. An organization needs a
fix. The vendor and consultants implement software to try and solve
the problem and then go on their way.
“SaaS has a different idea of success, which is tied to renewals,”
he continued. “A vendor’s revenue stream is dependent on the
customer’s success at every phase and milestone and on a continual
basis. That means vendors must get much more involved with projects,
whether that involves providing project management expertise
or discussing security certifications. They need to be involved every
step along the way to earn the renewal and the future business.” ✯
Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com.
For more information related to this subject, search our archives at
www.MIT-kmi.com.
www.MIT-kmi.com

Outcome-Based Metrics BY
In late May, President Obama announced
his intention to appoint a cybersecurity czar
whose mission is to safeguard our national
technology infrastructure. His announcement
coincided with the release of a review of the U.S.
federal government’s cybersecurity efforts and
initiatives.
While there has been significant speculation
about what the czar would do, to whom he or
she would report, and what level of authority the
position would hold, there’s been little discussion
about the effects of such a position on the
structure and operations of the federal government’s
security apparatus.
To be effective, comprehensive cyber-initiatives will require
wholesale change management efforts across the federal government
and transformation at virtually every level of the various agencies
and departments. The government must assess and address such
components as security metrics, service delivery models, changes to
procurement for trusted supply chain support, governance models
and a host of other operational processes to ensure that they advance
and support cybersecurity efforts.
Perhaps most important, though, it’s vital that the government
develop processes by which to measure performance and outcomes
associated with its cybersecurity efforts. Organizations must ask what
is important for risk mitigation and programmatic success in combating
threats to the enterprise. This goes beyond the mere tracking of
dollars spent to include measuring the effectiveness of those dollars in
meeting defined outcomes for security operations.
For instance, counting the number of firewalls installed and the
funds to purchase them does not reflect the true effectiveness in preventing
cyberterrorists from entering the network. Agencies should
envision the key measurement outcomes they desire and “reverse
plan” those events, milestones and details that will lead them to
achieving cybersecurity success.
Establishing metrics that weigh performance and outcomes isn’t
just about counting things. For example, the level of penetration of
a cybersecurity event is important, but level assignments tell a more
meaningful story. Categorizing incidents by their depth of impact to
the organization’s infrastructure and domain can help yield policy
changes, show where investments are necessary, and uncover opportunities
for training.
MORE MEANINGFUL ANALYSIS
Metrics within the security operations center or computer incident
response communities that could help provide more meaningful
analysis and enhanced cybersecurity include:
•
Measuring the effectiveness of security monitoring policy. Data
flow and the network behaviors become increasingly important as
we look for indicators to populate the needed metrics. In simplest
terms, for instance, this means reconciling the average volume of
•
•
SCOTT CHARBO
IT IS VITAL THAT THE GOVERNMENT DEVELOP PROCESSES BY WHICH TO MEASURE PERFORMANCE AND OUTCOMES
ASSOCIATED WITH ITS CYBERSECURITY EFFORTS.
traffic through the trusted Internet connection,
or TIC, divided by the average volume of
traffic through other agency gateways. The
result is a more comprehensive view of the
cyber landscape and can serve as an indicator
both for program success and adversaries’
interest.
• Measuring the effectiveness and efficiency
of security monitoring services delivery.
This metric speaks mostly to establishing a
percentage of false positives and could be
accomplished via analysis of false positives
alerts issued to an agency divided by the total
number of agency alerts created over the last
30 days. It’s also important to track the percentage of non-actionable
alerts—or the number of alerts issued to an agency that the
agency cannot verify, divided by the total number of alerts created
over the last 30 days.
Other key components of this metrics category include tracking
the percentage of targeted incidents reported to the U.S. Computer
Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) and weighing them
against the number that US-CERT’s Einstein program did not
detect, and recording sensors’ uptime percentage.
Measuring business or mission impact of security monitoring
activities and events. This metric considers total confirmed incident
reports and alerts discovered or reported over the last 30
days that are not false positives and are actionable. Further categorizing
these alerts in stages helps address them in a more
timely and effective manner. For example, “stage one” alerts
would be phishing e-mails and/or users visiting compromised
Websites. Stage two would address Trojan or malware downloading
after an initial infection. And stage three would cover command
and control traffic.
While there are still many unknown details about Obama’s cybersecurity
plans, it is encouraging that his administration is committed
to protecting our national computer systems. But to be truly effective,
the new cyberczar must move beyond traditional performance
measurements and embrace a paradigm shift toward outcomes-based
metrics. This, combined with an understanding of cybergovernance
in a global borderless context, will go a long way toward meeting this
administration’s strategic vision for
cybersecurity. ✯
Scott Charbo
Scott Charbo, Accenture U.S.
Federal’s director of cybersecurity, is
former deputy undersecretary of the
National Protection and Programs
Directorate, where he managed
the Cyber Security Initiative at the
Department of Homeland Security,
and former chief information officer
at DHS.
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 37

Network-Centric
Consensus
INDUSTRY CONSORTIUM FOSTERS
COMMON EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE
INTEROPERABILITY AMONG ESSENTIAL
GLOBAL MILITARY AND CIVIL FORCES.
Established in 2004,
the Network Centric Operations
Industry Consortium
(NCOIC) is a global notfor-profit
association dedicated
to the advancement of
network-centric operations
(NCO) and the benefits of
interoperability that NCO
can deliver to governments,
non-governmental organizations
and the citizens they
serve.
The more than 90 members of NCOIC
include 1,900 people from 19 nations. They
represent large and small defense companies,
system integrators, information technology
and service providers, government agencies
and academic institutions. Although many
38 | MIT 13.8
Nicolas Berthet
nicolas.berthet@ncoic.org
member companies are traditional
marketplace competitors,
they dedicate more
than 1,000 technical experts
to NCOIC’s quest for interoperability.
Their work is the
engine of the organization’s
achievement.
“NCOIC’s delicate
alchemy fosters true collaboration
among global
companies that are often
fierce business competitors,”
according to Nicolas Berthet of Thales
Group, who chairs NCOIC’s Technical
Council. “Their efforts to resolve customers’
interoperability issues recently resulted in
the publication of NCOIC’s Interoperability
Framework, a set of guiding principles for
•
•
•
•
•
•
NCOIC Goals
Increase interoperability within
and among systems involved in
interagency and multinational
operations.
Lower development costs and
increase design commonality in
future systems; apply tailored
standards and best practices.
Improve application readiness
through more rapid fielding of
network-centric systems;
leverage technical lessons
learned.
Reduce systems cost and
sustainability through reuse and
commonality; facilitate ease of
integration; upgrade and support
network-centric environment.
Reduce development risk by
identifying the common
components needed for the
network-centric environment, and
develop them where none exist.
Improve application effectiveness
through new, more focused
development on domain-specific
capabilities.
www.MIT-kmi.com

developers of network-centric systems,
products and services.”
NCOIC’s deliverables—tools,
frameworks, patterns and best
practices—address customers’ key
concerns and help them identify
opportunities to:
•
•
•
Ensure that a new or emerging
system will be interoperable
with other systems;
Determine how legacy systems
can bridge the gap between
current capability and a customer’s
desired level of netcentricity;
and
Adapt systems to meet evolving
mission requirements and to
easily accept emerging technology.
COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENT
“People who operate in one market
segment adopt a model about
how the world works, and that can
lead to a mental rut,” said Hans Polzer, a
Lockheed Martin fellow and chair of NCO-
IC’s Network Centric Attributes Functional
Team. “NCOIC members come from many
sectors and have opinions that don’t always
agree with your own. Within the context of
such a collaborative environment, diverse
thinking can be a catalyst for innovation.”
The path from innovation to consensus
can be thorny. Yet in NCOIC’s unique, noncompetitive
environment, member technologists
do share their ideas, knowledge, best
practices, and even intellectual property.
They attack the technical challenges, evaluate
alternatives and teach each other.
Ultimately, they reach consensus and
propose “voice of industry” recommendations
that can leverage the power of network
centricity to help customers achieve
greater success in domains such as command,
control and communications; maritime;
aviation; cybersecurity; sense and
respond logistics; and net-enabled emergency
response.
“Many people think that consensus leads
to a lowest common denominator,” said
Terry Morgan of Cisco, who serves as NCO-
IC’s executive chairman. “In fact, NCOIC’s
process frequently leads to agreements that
are better than the piece parts of the dialog.
This happens because a forum of talented,
experienced and secure experts present and
defend their ideas and propositions, knowing
Hans Polzer
hans.w.polzer@lmco.com
Ken Cureton
kenneth.l.cureton@ncoic.org
Terry Morgan
tmorgan@cisco.com
Lt. Gen. Harry Raduege
(Ret.)
that the wisdom of talented and experienced
collaborators can improve upon any idea.”
“Where else can we learn how to operate
better, faster and more securely?” asked Air
Force Lieutenant General Harry Raduege
(Ret.), now chairman of Deloitte’s Center
for Cyber Innovation. “Where else can
we see how other companies address the
issues and collaborate on technology like
service-oriented architectures, cloud computing
and interoperability patterns? We
are overwhelmed with opportunities in the
way network-centric operations can shape
the future.”
Whether representing their own companies
or the consortium, NCOIC leaders
•
•
•
hraduege@del.ittc.com
NCOIC trains Australian defense
force and industry officials; nation
may be first to apply consortium’s
net-centric tools to acquisition
process.
FAA and NCOIC take unique path to
NextGen; initiative represents
pioneering effort by FAA.
The U.S. Office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Networks
and Information Integration and
NCOIC collaborate to develop the
time-phasing assessment of DoD
net-centric attributes.
advocate that net-centric systems can
bring interoperability to allied and
coalition forces. As a result, the U.S.
government, several coalition governments
and NATO have invited the
NCOIC to prove the effectiveness of
its tools and processes in military field
exercises, demonstrations and training
sessions.
“They want to see for themselves
how NCOIC’s deliverables work,” said
Boeing’s Ken Cureton, vice chair of
the consortium’s Technical Council.
“They want answers to essential questions
like how much NCO is enough
for my mission, will our current plans
get us there, how will I know when we
are there, and what will it take to make
us interoperable with others?”
NCOIC listens to the needs of
global defense departments and ministries
of defense. Its deliverables are
designed to help leaders determine
the levels of network centricity they
require to meet their unique national
missions; provide the tools to diagnose
current and planned systems’ capabilities;
and assess whether the systems do or can
meet their required performance levels. In
this way it offers recommendations that
can remove potential barriers to success.
Agencies and governments have invited
NCOIC to assess their strategies, concepts
of operation and major programs with an
eye toward their ability to support networkcentric
operations and interoperability.
ACQUISITION PROCESS
One recent example of how NCOIC is
helping customers achieve interoperability
involves training military and industry
Customer Collaboration
•
•
•
U.S. Defense Information Systems
Agency and NCOIC develop
Standards Management Framework
and Reference Implementation
Model, and also collaborate on IPv6
work.
NATO shares unclassified portion of
its network enabled capability
feasibility study report with NCOIC;
the consortium evaluated
operational concepts and
requirements defined in the study.
NCOIC leaders meet with Defense
Science Board to exchange NCO
visions and strategies.
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 39

officials in Australia, which may
become the first country to apply
the consortium’s net-centric
tools to the military acquisition
process.
In May, at Australia’s Canberra
Rapid Prototyping, Development
and Evaluation facility, a
team of NCOIC technical experts
led officials from the Department
of Defence and the Australian
Defence Information and
Electronic Systems Association
(ADIESA) through a training session
designed to show how NCO-
IC’s interoperability tools might
meet the country’s unique needs.
Their discussions also centered
on ways to apply the tools to
Australia’s defense capability
development and procurement
processes.
“The Australian Department
of Defence is a keen supporter
of NCOIC, its principles
and tools,” said Air Commodore
John McGarry. “During 2009 we
aim to apply NCOIC products to
the acquisition process to better
define interoperability requirements and
improve through-life systems integration
prospects.”
Although Australia’s population is relatively
small (23 million people), it has the
14th largest defense budget in the world.
It employs military forces in 11 theaters
overseas and at home to protect the country
and its national interests. Australia is a
middle power in global terms, meaning that
it maintains complex relationships with
close allies, coalition partners and regional
nations.
“Getting information across the ‘last
mile’ has always been the toughest challenge,
yet we must see to it that future
forces can access information as if they were
in the middle of the network, rather than on
the edge,” said Brett Biddington, ADIESA
chairman. “If we adopt globally accepted
standards and tools, then we can begin to
build all sorts of relationships—between
Asian, European, American and other forces
—because we will all have the same glue.”
AIRSPACE TRANSFORMATION
The consortium and the U.S. Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA), meanwhile,
are taking a unique path to NextGen, in an
40 | MIT 13.8
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
NCOIC Deliverables
Systems, Capabilities, Operations, Programs and
Enterprises (SCOPE): characterizes commercial, civil
and government requirements for interoperable
systems; identifies system gaps and strengths.
Net Centric Analysis Tool (NCAT): net-centric analysis
of system architectures, including system-of-systems
and federation-of-systems models; prescribes ways
to close gaps and leverage system strengths.
NCOIC Interoperability Framework (NIF): recommends
open standards, provides patterns, guidance and
success metrics for developing interoperable
systems.
Net-centric Pattern: three categories of patterns
(mission-oriented, function-oriented and designoriented)
describe standard practices, methodologies
and technologies that can advance interoperability.
Building Blocks: catalog of open standards-based
COTS and GOTS products that comply with NIF
recommendations.
NCOIC Lexicon: glossary of terms and definitions that
lay the foundation for meaningful discussions.
Provides a common language for disparate ideas
concerning key terms, including “NCO.”
Systems engineering best practices and processes:
includes tools, process and maturity models,
modeling techniques, and collaborative environments
for NCOIC integration.
NCOIC deliverables are available free of charge at
www.ncoic.org.
initiative that represents a pioneering effort
by FAA. On July 7, the agency and NCOIC
entered a five-year agreement to advance the
Enterprise Architecture of NextGen, FAA’s
national airspace (NAS) transformation program.
Under the agreement, NCOIC proposes to
FAA net-centric standards, best practices and
patterns that can lead to the achievement of
NextGen’s 2025 milestones. Among other
artifacts, NCOIC’s recommendations will utilize
the Joint Program Development Office’s
concept of operations for 2025 NextGen. The
joint office’s Net-centric Task Force, which
informs the CONOPS, is led by the U.S. Air
Force.
“We anticipate that the standards,
recommendations, best practices and netcentric
pattern development derived from
our collaboration will strengthen NextGen’s
requirements,” said Morgan. “Our recommendations
will be founded on the thoughts
of multi-national, multi-industry leaders in
net-centricity.”
Industry’s review of a major acquisition’s
enterprise architecture—prior to developing
proposal requirements—is a pioneering
effort conceived by the FAA. Further, the
agreement encourages industry to provide
expertise to FAA throughout NextGen’s life
cycle, from research through disposition.
The significance of implementing
a NextGen enterprise architecture
based on open standards—and
designed to enable network-centric
operations—includes delivering
vital information to those who operate
the NAS; speeding system development
and reducing procurement
cost through reuse of software, patterns
and best practices; effectively
bringing legacy systems into an
interoperable enterprise; and supporting
the seamless integration of
rapidly emerging technology into
NextGen.
The resulting benefit could be a
technologically “evergreen” system
that enhances controllers’ ability to
manage traffic, increases passenger
safety, reduces airport flight delays,
and advances the airlines’ drive to
achieve greener operations.
The NCOIC-FAA collaboration
dates back several years. In 2008,
the agency used the NCAT tool as
part of its Network Enabled Operations
demonstrations. In addition,
the consortium’s Aviation Integrated Project
Team is developing two patterns for global
application—one for weather data dissemination
and another for flight object data
dissemination. The goal is interoperability in
joint endeavors.
With the cumulative knowledge of its
member organizations, NCOIC serves as an
honest broker to provide broad industry perspectives
on products, systems, tools and processes
that could advance the major objective
of network-centric operations: getting the
right information to the right people at the
right time and in the right format. In other
words, it is to achieve interoperability among
essential global military and civil forces.
More about NCOIC is available at www.
ncoic.org. The NCOIC hosts plenary meetings
three times a year, including one in
late September in Fairfax, Va. Each includes
a series of working sessions along with a
general session in which government and
industry leaders address topics germane to
NCO. ✯
Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at
harrisond@kmimediagroup.com.
For more information related to this subject,
search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.
www.MIT-kmi.com

THE AN/PRC-148 HANDHELD RADIO:
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
Warfi ghters need to meet today’s
critical battlefi eld communications
needs and prepare for the net-centric
future. With the AN/PRC-148 JTRS
Enhanced Multiband Inter/Intra Team
Radio, or JEM, the future of battlespace
communications is in hand. The
AN/PRC-148 is the smallest, lightest,
and most power-effi cient, tactical
handheld radio in use today covering the
30 -- 512 MHz frequency range. It is the
most widely-fi elded multiband handheld
radio in the world.
The AN/PRC-148 JEM’s Software
Communications Architecture (SCA)compliant
platform hosts all of today’s
key waveforms and enables the
integration of program enhancements,
future waveforms, and additional modes
of operation, all via simple software
upgrades. Waveforms can be loaded
onto the JEM’s SCA platform, allowing
the radio to be used for a wider variety of
applications and providing maximum user
fl exibility and upgradeability.
Thales has fi elded a full system of ancillary
products built around the AN/PRC-148
that are providing warfi ghters with
additional communications capabilities,
for mounted and dismounted operations,
in size-, weight-, and power-constrained
environments,
Thales’s vehicular systems offer fl exible
mobility for the JEM. The Thales Vehicle
Adapters and Vehicle Adapter Amplifi ers
provide single and dual channel 50 Watt
power amplifi cation for range extension,
recharge the radio’s battery, and support
a wide range of secure and anti-jamming
voice and data applications. Thales’s
unique, cable free, rapid radio dismount
capability enables warfi ghters to shift
seamlessly from mounted to dismounted
operation in less than two seconds with a
fully-charged and immediately operational
handheld radio.
The new Extended Band Manpack (EBMP)
supplies 20 Watts of extended band
operation from 1.6 -- 512 MHz. With HF,
VHF, and UHF in a single manpack, the
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rugged EBMP reduces the warfi ghter’s
carry load by replacing two legacy radios
at half of the combined weight, size, and
cost with no loss of functionality.
Trusted on the battlefi eld for years, Thales
is fi elding technology today that is ready
for tomorrow.
Taking multiband
capability to the next level!
Thales has combined the functionality
of multiple radios into a single
manpack that provides continuous
coverage for HF, VHF, and UHF. The
Extended Band Manpack (EBMP)
weighs less than 15.5 pounds with
the radio installed, providing more
capability in a smaller package. The
EBMP leverages the capabilities and
certifi cations of the embedded AN/
PRC-148 JEM and adds over-thehorizon
HF capabilities, including
SSB, CW, and ALE. With internal
GPS, ease of programming, a user
friendly front-loading battery, and the
ability to “hot swap” the main battery
without rebooting the radio, the
EBMP offers long-awaited capability
for warfi ghters.
For information on the complete product
family, visit our website and download our
AN/PRC-148 Product Catalog.
Lives Depend On Our Products --
We Will Always Act Accordingly
6001_19_001:090909:V1

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Multi-Viewer Provides High
Fidelity Display
The latest in the SuperView family of multi-viewers from RGB Spectrum,
model 5000 offers real-time performance with up to 12 windows. The SV5000,
housed within a 3RU enclosure, is ideal for any application requiring high
fidelity display of multiple images on a monitor or projector. In keeping with
RGB Spectrum’s standards of performance and value, the SV5000 delivers realtime
performance regardless of the number of inputs and outputs, at any resolution.
The model 5000 is based on a custom high performance architecture
rather than a PC, with faster updates, more display flexibility, robustness and
security. Real time display of inputs is guaranteed under all conditions, without
any dropped frames. The SuperView 5000 offers a scalable system that can be
expanded to as many as 12 inputs.
Input alternatives include RGB/DVI,
analog video and HD-SDI. Each
input can be sized and positioned
anywhere on the screen, as well as
panned and zoomed to emphasize
areas of particular interest. Display
alternatives are virtually infinite,
and include quad split, side-by-side,
picture-in-picture, and overlapping
windows.
Crowbar Attacks Digital
Forensic Challenges
Crowbar from ManTech Cyber Solutions International is a unique digital
forensic tool designed to perform critical functions needed by the law enforcement
and military digital forensics community. Crowbar deciphers personal
identification numbers on multimedia flash memory cards typically used in
mobile phones, personal digital assistants, digital cameras, and other devices.
Crowbar addresses several forensics challenges. For example, many traditional
forensics tools will identify a PIN-locked flash memory card as “corrupt”
without indicating that the card may be PIN-locked. Crowbar is able to determine
if a memory card is PIN-locked, corrupt or damaged. Before Crowbar,
the only way a military, law enforcement or civilian government investigator
could unlock these storage devices was to obtain the PIN from the owner, or
manually guess at the PIN. Crowbar gives investigators access to data stored on
PIN-locked secure digital or multimedia card flash memory cards by rapidly
attempting to determine the PIN.
Crowbar is a user-friendly, portable, handheld device that is designed
for tactical field operations. Crowbar delivers results by saving precious fieldinvestigation
time by attempting to crack PINs faster and more efficiently than
could be done manually; creating forensically sound images of unlocked cards
for further examination back at the lab; and serving as a write-blocked card
reader for unlocked cards.
42 | MIT 13.8
New Gateway Platform Offers
“Security That Thinks”
The new eSafe SmartSuite Secure Gateway for Web and mail protection
and control is now available from SafeNet. An entirely new gateway platform,
eSafe SmartSuite offers “security that thinks”—the combination of intelligent
protection, ease of use, and value-focused management and reporting
that provides the insights today’s businesses require. Building on the foundation
of eSafe’s real-time, intelligent technology platform, designed to protect
organizations from current and future threats, eSafe SmartSuite offers
real-time, intelligent inspection of all inbound and outbound Web and mail
traffic while delivering unmatched performance and scalability. Additionally,
eSafe SmartSuite now improves productivity and management visibility, and
enhances security decision-making capabilities through simple, intelligent,
and value-driven monitoring, trend analysis and reporting functionality. A
component of SafeNet’s vision for comprehensive enterprise data protection,
eSafe SmartSuite delivers the first fully integrated content security and data
leakage prevention solution with data aware monitoring, enabling assessment
and mitigation of threats originating from data leakage. eSafe allows
organizations to detect, analyze and prevent mishandling of information, and
will be fully aware of existing risks so that they can take preventive measures
to protect sensitive data.
Amanda Curtis: amanda.curtis@safenet-inc.com
Handheld Performs
in Streamlined,
Portable Form Factor
Technology Advancement Group (TAG) has released the second generation
of the TC-100 Commander. This latest device from TAG defines the cutting edge
of fast, mobile handheld computers, featuring a sunlight readable display, a
touch screen, unparalleled I/O flexibility, and customizable button configurations.
TAG’s TC-100 sets the
stage for mobile computers
wwith
state-of-the-art tech-
nology, specifically hardened
to resist the harshest
environments of modern
tactical field applications.
The updated model
provides the performance
of a dedicated, lightweight (3.8 pounds) computer in a streamlined, portable
form factor. The Commander is available with advanced features such as GPS,
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, video capture, hard-drive encryption, night vision compatible
display, and cellular connectivity. Built-in expansion slots afford mobile
users endless flexibility for field applications. Its ergonomic, handheld design
is completely ruggedized and designed to meet MIL-STDs for shock and vibration.
Matt Hederstrom: matt.hederstrom@tag.com
www.MIT-kmi.com

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.
MIT CALEND A R & DI RECTO RY
ADVERTISERS INDEX
AFCEA InfoTech 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
www.afcea-infotech.org
Cases2Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
www.cases2go.com
Ericsson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C2
www.ericssonfederal.com
GDC4 Needham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
www.gdc4s.com/secureproducts
GDC4 Taunton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C3
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Harris RF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
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Hitachi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
www.hds.com/go/discover
ITT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
www.cs.itt.com/tough
L-3 East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C4
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L-3 West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
www. l-3com.com/csw
McLane Advanced Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
www.mclaneat.com
Rockwell Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
www.rockwellcollins.com/milsatcom
Scalable Network Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
www.scalable-networks.com/visnet
Smartronix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
www.smartronix.com
Sprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
www.sprint.com/nextel
Thales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
www.thalescomminc.com
CALENDAR
September 21-25, 2009
NCOIC Plenary Meeting
Fairfax, Va.
www.ncoic.org
September 29-October 1, 2009
Modern Day Marine
Quantico, Va.
www.marinemilitaryexpos.com
October 5-7, 2009
AUSA Annual Meeting
and Exhibition
Washington, D.C.
www.ausa.org
October 18-21, 2009
MILCOM 2009
Boston, Mass.
www.milcom.org
October 18-21, 2009
GEOINT Symposium
San Antonio, Texas
www.usgif.com
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
November 2-5, 2009
TechNet Asia-Pacifi c
Honolulu, Hawaii
www.afcea.org
NEXTISSUE
Cover and In-Depth Interview ew with:
Richard
Williams
Vice Principal Director
GIG Enterprise Services Engineering ngineering
DISA
DISA Special l
Section
IA Executive
Mark Orndorff, program
executive offi cer, information on
assurance and NetOps PEO O
Who’s Who
in DISA
Photos, biographies and
contact information for key y
DISA offi cials
DISA Updates
Reports on key DISA programs
Features:
Expanded Cybersecurity
Coverage
Insider threat management
IA performance metrics
Military IA news updates
Satellite Contract
New alliance between DISA and the
General Services Administration could
provide major benefi ts to military users
of commercial SATCOM.
October 2009
Volume 13, Issue 9
Video Teleconferencing
As the military expands reliance on
video teleconferencing, vendors are
offering a host of security and other
enhancements.
Distributed Agents
Distributed agent-based systems
interoperability enables interoperability
among existing systems and delivers
high-order data processing and
discovery capability.
www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.8 | 43

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW MILITARY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Simon Lee is president and chief executive
officer of STG Inc., a leading provider of
performance-based IT, homeland security,
engineering, financial and scientific services
with customers spanning government and
industry. In 1986 he founded STG, which has
since grown into a more than $200 million
organization with more than 1,300 worldwide
employees.
Q: What does STG do to support the
Army’s Global Network Enterprise Construct
[GNEC]?
A: The GNEC is a global enterprise capability
that is enabled by Network Service Centers
[NSC]. Currently, the Army is projecting
five NSCs in its IT enterprise. Each NSC
has three major capabilities: Fixed Regional
Hub Node [FRHN], Area Processing Centers
[APC] and Theater Network Operations and
Security Centers [TNOSC]. By supporting
the TNOSCs, we are also providing support
to NETOPS, FRHNs and APCs. Our
responsibilities include indirect support to
other Army organizations requesting copies
of our processes; ITIL best practices; lessons
learned; and Army tactics, techniques,
and procedures [ATTP], as well as those
requesting subject matter expertise [SME]
and reachback support to enable other Army
organizations to meet their individual missions.
STG is proud to be a part of the
Army’s team. As a mid-sized business and
partner in the collaborative efforts across
9th Signal Command (Army) [9th SC(A)],
STG believes in sharing our expertise and
knowledge across the enterprise to serve
the greater good of the Army. We use our
knowledge of Army initiatives to ensure
other Army enterprises are using their
scarce investment dollars to the greatest
possible outcome.
In the end, we all share one mission:
to support the warfighter and keep our
soldiers and our country safe.
Q: How are the TNOSCs, with increasing
mission and decreasing budgets,
transforming to a modular-based, expeditionary
force capable of full-spectrum
operations?
44 | MIT 13.8
Simon Lee
President and Chief Executive Officer
STG
A: The key here is collaboration across the
Army enterprise. In order to maximize available
resources, the individual TNOSCs are
sharing their processes, SME and lessons
learned with one another. Sharing these best
practices and tools across the entire Army
enterprise allows 9th SC(A) to fully leverage
the unique expertise and knowledge of common
NETOPS tools available in the Army IT
enterprise. This includes sharing and integrating
their ATTPs, sharing lessons learned
across the TNOSCs and working to integrate
proven ITIL-based processes and procedures
across all Army IT support service providers.
Across the Army enterprise, this collaboration
includes integrating all those
individual processes developed across the
TNOSCs and NECs, so that each organization
understands its own responsibilities
and how its services and procedures fit into
the larger Army enterprise.
Q: How does innovation play a part in the
Army’s transformation and mission?
A: It is important to take advantage of emerging
commercial technologies and leverage
their improved capabilities as they apply
to an Army environment. In addition, the
Army does an outstanding job of establishing
forums where the Army’s leadership explains
their IT mission needs to the government
contractor community, which allows industry
to focus its independent research and
development investments on the Army’s
actual current and future IT requirements.
The Army has established IT enterprise
leadership among the military com-
munity by tailoring commercial IT best
practices in their mission-critical environment.
They are generating an environment
that concentrates on continuity of
delivered services while greatly reducing
the risk of unexpected service outages.
Currently, in the Army’s rapidly changing
tactical IT environment, it is important
to be able to react quickly to unexpected
issues. The Army is focused on establishing
processes that support a more proactive,
rather than reactive, approach to IT enterprise
management. The war fight starts at
the tactical edge with the world’s finest
fighting force. Industry’s role is to develop
innovative technology that will support the
warfighter from the tactical edge back to
the Army’s enterprise enablers.
Q: What role does a contractor like STG
play in supporting the Army’s mission?
A: First, let me say again how honored STG is
to play a role on the Army’s team. Every day
our employees wake up proud and humbled
by the sacrifices our warfighters make to
keep our country safe.
The Army is starting to fully embrace
performance-based contracting and the
idea of service delivery, and is focused on
increasing situational awareness to make
the warfighter more lethal and powerful.
The Army is concerned about the overall
impact of IT service delivery to the
warfighter, the impact on the mission, and
the impact to the Army. They shouldn’t
have to focus on the small, individual components
that help lead to the delivery of IT
services. As a government contractor, it is
STG’s job to worry about the bits and bytes,
and let the Army focus on accomplishing
their mission.
In short, we help enable the Army to
focus on the intended outcome, and not
solely on how IT can support the accomplishment
of the mission. They tell us what
services are needed to support the mission,
and we determine how best to deliver those
services to the warfighter. That is what we
do, and we do it well. The Army’s mission is
important to national security and defense,
and we are happy to play a small role in
helping achieve that mission. ✯
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.
© 2007-09 General Dynamics. All rights reserved.
Select photographs courtesy of the U.S. Department of Defense.

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