Defense Systems - July-August
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DEFENSESYSTEMS
K N O W L E D G E T E C H N O L O G I E S A N D N E T- E N A B L E D W A R F A R E
Volume 9, Number 4 | www.DefenseSystems.com
July/August 2015
THE
NAVY
OWNS
UP
Taking control
of the network
with NGEN
can help avoid
NMCI’s
missteps
CYBER DEFENSE
Can a Cold War approach
work for cyber defense?
DEFENSE IT
Are satellite systems
facing a ‘space
Pearl Harbor’?
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CONTENTS | JULY/AUGUST 2015
SPECIAL REPORT
Owning IT
With NGEN, Navy takes control of the network,
vowing not to repeat the pitfalls of NMCI
PAGE 10
FEATURES
BATTLESPACE TECH
14 As attacks mount, officials debate whether a Cold ..
24 Study: DOD can’t delay in developing and
War-style approach to deterrence can work.
25 Why the command post of the future will be
UAS & ROBOTICS
16 An Air Force research team changes the way
deploying laser weapons
UAS crews can collaborate
simpler, lighter
DEFENSE IT
18 The Army is developing a ‘flying motorcycle’
26 DISA’s five-year plan stresses JIE,
for the battlefield
cyber operations
27 Is a ‘space Pearl Harbor’ inevitable?
C4ISR
20 The Warfighter Information Network-Tactical
MOBILE
28 High-bandwidth battlefield radio doesn’t
gets to the next level
21 A pocket-size device can track soldiers without
the need for GPS
need satellites
30 DISA releases a heavy-duty suite for mobile
CYBER DEFENSE
classified comm
22 The Army is giving cyber warriors a training range
DEPARTMENTS
6
of their own
23 Cyber Guard exercise expands to a
FORWARD OBSERVER
34 COMMENT
whole-of-nation approach
The Defense
Systems
Network
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PARTNERING MEDIA
PRODUCED BY
6/5/15 10:58 AM
Forward
Observer
Hawking
for NATO
NATO and Northrop Grumman
have unveiled the first of
five planned Alliance Ground
Surveillance (AGS) aircraft,
which are intended to expand
ISR capability for NATO and
Trash talking
allied forces. The AGS is a high-
One Air Force base’s trash has turned out to be a treasure for
altitude, long-range unmanned
system based on the U.S. Global
Hawk Block 40 aircraft. It will
be integrated into a broader
system-of-systems approach
to support NATO missions
such as protection of ground
streamlining communications between ground forces and drone
operators, thanks to a young sensor operator’s innovation. The
“Frankenphone”—so dubbed because it is made up materials slated
for scrap—solved stove-piped communications problem that kept UAV
pilots’ radio communications and the phone lines to joint terminal
attack controllers separate. Frankenphone, built by Staff Sgt. Marion
troops and civilian populations,
at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., ties the phone line directly into the
border control, maritime safety,
pilot’s headset intercom, which keeps the pilots’ hands free while
anti-terrorism activities and
keeping entire aircrew in the loop. “While the design is simple, what
humanitarian assistance in
the Frankenphone does for the Air Force is nothing short of incredible,”
natural disasters.
said Gen. Herbert J. Carlisle, the commander of Air Combat Command.
6 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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Bandwidth booster
The Navy’s high-powered new satellite communications
system now covers about three-quarters of the globe, after
the third of four planned satellites recently completed on-orbit
testing and was accepted into service by the Navy. The Mobile
User Objective System satellite, MUOS-3 (seen here being
prepared for launch), made by Lockheed Martin, was launched
Jan. 20 and has moved to its on-orbit operational slot. MUOS
provides secure, high-speed, IP-based voice, video and
mission data, and delivers a 16-fold increase in transmission
throughput over the current Ultra High Frequency satellite
system. The first two satellites in the system were launched
in 2012 and 2013. A fourth is set for launch later this year to
complete the constellation.
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Forward
Observer
Becoming
one with a
computer
Can you control a computer
with your thoughts? The Army
Research Lab and university
researchers are working on
it, using an EEG-based based
brain-computer interface, or
BCI, to meld the mind with
software. It’s a long way
off, but it could transform
applications ranging from
medical treatments to how
soldiers communicate on the
battlefield.
The pulse of future weapons
The Air Force Research Laboratory and Boeing have been
working on an electromagnetic pulse weapon for several
years, with the goal of using high-powered microwaves to
take out electronics and computer systems without the death
and destruction that comes with conventional weapons.
Now that system, CHAMP, for Counter-electronics Highpowered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, reportedly
is mature and is being miniaturized to fit the Joint Airto-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM-ER), which ARL has
determined is CHAMP’s optimal vehicle.
8 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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EDITOR’S DISPATCH
BY
KEVIN
McCANEY
Cyber Pearl Harbor? Nah.
T
he hack of the Office of Personnel Management that
compromised records of as many as 18 million current and
former federal employees roiled the cyber waters around
Washington, with some security experts and GOP critics of the
administration raising the specter of a familiar Internet fear: a “cyber
Pearl Harbor.”
As shorthand for the idea of a major, damaging, retaliation-worthy
cyberattack, the phrase works pretty well. But how likely is it?
On the one hand, in a Pew Research Center report released last
fall, 61 percent of the 1,642 technology experts canvassed said that
by 2025 a major cyberattack will cause “widespread harm,” including
loss of life and/or property lost/damaged/stolen to the tune of tens
of billions of dollars. On the other hand, 39 percent of those experts
thought the idea was hooey, telling Pew that many security fears
are trumped up by companies that profit from protecting against
threats. (It’s also worth noting that the percentages might not mean
much, since this was an opt-in process, rather than a randomized,
representative survey; Pew chose the word “canvass” deliberately.)
There’s no doubt that the Internet is a risky place, as the recent
spate of cyberattacks against government and industry—variously
Shedding light on
space junk
The Naval Research Lab has received a
patent for it Optical Orbital Debris Spotter,
a small, low-power, low-cost local system
that can help better track the growing
attributed to Russia, China, North Korea and others—show. In
addition to personal data and intellectual property, there are threats
to an increasingly connected infrastructure and the Internet of Things.
Infrastructure, in fact, was a big concern for the 61 percent in Pew’s
report.
The threats are real—and the Pentagon has said that a significant
cyberattack could be seen as an act of war. But how likely are they to
rise to that level? Some experts are skeptical. Eric Gartzke, writing in
a 2013 issue of International Security, called a cyber Pearl Harbor—
amount of debris in space, some of which
and for that matter, cyberwar itself—a “myth,” saying that, unless it
is pretty tiny. NRL said the sensor creates a
accompanies an actual physical war, there’s little benefit to taking the
continuous light sheet by using a collimated
light source, such as a low-power laser, and
time and expense of mounting a truly large-scale, damaging attack.
Others have agreed.
And cyber weapons are hard. Take Stuxnet, the reportedly U.S./
a conic mirror. Any particles, even those as
Israeli-developed malware designed to disrupt Iran’s uranium
small as 0.01 centimeters, crossing into the
processing. Called the first weaponized malware, it took years and
permanently illuminated light sheet scatter
millions of dollars to develop and deploy and, although technically
the light. The spotter can then gather data
about the particles that can be added to
modeling software to help increase the
understanding of space debris.
successful, it only put a crimp in Iran’s nuclear program, without
causing any real long-term damage. A reported attempt to set a
Stuxnet relative loose in North Korea failed.
In the world where technology is always changing and improving,
you never want to say never. But for now at least, the real online
threat isn’t a cyber Pearl Harbor but the thousand cuts of constant
hacks and breaches. And as OPM could attest, that’s bad enough.
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Owning
IT
With NGEN, Navy
takes control of the network,
vowing not to repeat the
pitfalls of NMCI
BY GREG SLABODKIN
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g
W
hen the $8.8 billion Navy Marine Corps Intranet
(NMCI) contract was awarded to EDS—now a division of HP—in 2000, the military service touted
the undertaking to provide a single, secure, enterprise-wide
network as the world’s largest corporate intranet, second in
size only to the Internet itself.
NMCI consolidated literally thousands of Navy and Marine Corps computer networks into a single, managed service
with a standardized, end-to-end, shore-based IT capability for voice, video and data communications connecting
more than 700,000 users utilizing more than 300,000 “seats”
(desktops/laptops). However, given its sheer scale, NMCI was
plagued with problems from the start.
Technical and logistical challenges led to delays in the
fielding of the network, which resulted in big financial
losses for EDS. And results of NMCI user surveys at the
time repeatedly showed widespread frustration with the
network, which was described as unstable and slow,
among other sometimes more colorful adjectives.
Critics questioned the Navy’s reasoning for adopting a fully outsourced model that essentially handed
over its entire IT infrastructure to EDS as a contractor-owned network. When the NMCI contract
ended in 2010 and a new Continuity of Services
Contract (CoSC) began, the service wasn’t about to
repeat its past mistakes. Though the Navy retained
the same scope of services with Hewlett-Pack-
ard in the CoSC contract, the network became a governmentowned, contractor-supported, managed service during the
migration to the next phase of the massive intranet, known as
Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN).
NEW APPROACH
A $3.5 billion contract awarded in 2013 to incumbent HP to
transition IT services from NMCI to NGEN was completed
in September 2014—three months ahead of schedule. While
NGEN provides all of the same services that are available under NMCI, the Navy’s acquisition approach was quite different in the evolution of the Department of Navy’s shore-based
enterprise network.
Because NGEN is a government-owned network, the
Navy believes it has greater visibility into its enterprise
services and is better able to manage costs than was possible with NMCI, along with providing for more flexible and
adaptable IT network services. Capt. Michael Abreu, program manager for
the Naval Enterprise Networks
Program Management Office,
calls NGEN’s “governmentowned, contractor-operated”
model unique in the defense community and the
reason for its success to
date.
Students from the Center for
Information Dominance work
on the Navy’s network.
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NGEN
“We obviously went off and bought
the intellectual property and the infrastructure of the network for a reason—
in order to help our network operator
exercise full command and control of
the network itself,” Abreu said. “There
are very big advantages that come with
that. We have that control and the
ability to make decisions as to how to
provision the network effectively over
time. The network operator has the
ability to maneuver that network in a
more holistic and faster manner than
in the past.”
Abreu boasts that his program office is “the largest and only enterprise
IT services program of record” in the
Defense Department, and that NGEN’s
contracting competition will save taxpayers more than $1 billion over the
2014-2019 Future Year Defense Program in how the Navy is acquiring
these services. According to Abreu,
the Navy is spending $20 million per
month less than what it was paying
previously under NMCI due to competitive pricing. Government ownership is a different operating environment and acquisition model, he said,
acknowledging that the Navy is learn-
Along with the Navy, the
Marines took back control of
their IT systems with NGEN.
it was quite the industry standard at
the time. But, as the Navy has moved
forward, they have evaluated what
they need to hang onto as core business.” Starling added that HP has been
“working very hard to make sure they
have that level of visibility and flexibility that they need as opposed to the
early days when it was largely just a
delivered service.”
“The evolution of the network …
is moving towards industry best
practices, so we have government
roles and contractor roles clearly
defined.” –CAPT. MICHAEL ABREU, NAVY
ing as it goes.
Denby Starling, a retired Navy vice
admiral and HP vice president, said
his company has been working closely
with the Navy—through various contracts—on the network for nearly 15
years. “It’s a model that’s evolved just
like technology has evolved,” Starling
said. “Back in the early 2000s when
the Navy first decided to outsource its
‘back in business’ IT infrastructure,
STRENGTH IN CONTINUITY
Though it has not been without its challenges “as any large enterprise approach
can be,” Abreu said the NGEN contract
with HP is going well and that the program has made significant progress
since the transition from NMCI was
completed last September. Abreu said
he believes that the fact that HP was the
prime contractor for NMCI and is the
vendor for NGEN has enabled the Navy
to complete the transition sooner than
the service had planned.
“This is about the Navy having much
more insight end-to-end on the whole
network, from acquisition to engineering to operations,” said Starling. “We’ve
transitioned from a model where essentially HP did all of that on behalf of the
government to a model where HP does
all of that in response to the government. In the end, we have to have processes where we’re working side-by-side
with the government where things that
we just did for them in the past now in
most places actually there is a government overseer and/or decision maker
that gives the Navy a much better ability to operate and improve/modernize
their product.”
To successfully achieve operational
control across a large information
technology enterprise like NGEN, the
Navy turned to IT Service Management
(ITSM), a discipline for managing IT
systems based on industry best practices.
“What’s important about the new
model is that we’re working on it under an ITSM construct which we really
didn’t have in place fully prior to this,”
said Abreu. “The evolution of the net-
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BY THE NUMBERS
700,000
Number of users on NMCI
$3.5billion
Size of the 2013 contract awarded to HP to
transition IT services from NMCI to NGEN
3months
The time by which the transition was
completed ahead of schedule
$20million
The amount the Navy says it is paying less per
month for services under NGEN
work and the management of the network is moving towards industry best
practices, so we have government roles
and contractor roles clearly defined and
we have processes that we’re putting in
place to manage the network in an effective way. We’re still learning in that
regard.”
According to Abreu, the Navy continues to implement a technology refresh
and modernization plan that “looks
across the network to optimize and upgrade the infrastructure equipment on a
regular basis.” Key near-term milestones
include transitioning to Microsoft’s
Windows 10 operating as well as testing
and certification of a new browser set.
“Upgrading to the next OS on the
network is a non-trivial affair for a large
number of users, as is ensuring that we
stay on pace with offering browsers that
allow applications to work effectively
and enable the Navy to leverage the
capabilities that the Internet brings,”
Abreu said.
STREAMLINING SERVICE
When it comes to mobility, NGEN is
migrating from BlackBerry to Apple
and Android mobile devices to better
reflect product offerings in the commercial market. Currently, 700 iPhones
are in use in the network with the ultimate goal of more than 25,000 authorized smartphone users deployed by the
end of the year.
Network and data center consolidation remain priorities for NGEN as
the service looks to gain efficiencies,
including planning how the Navy will
adopt cloud computing. Thirty-three
NMCI data centers are being consoli-
dated down to 15 data centers with the
ultimate goal of 10 data centers.
As far as Navy’s cloud strategy, it remains a work in progress with a number of cloud-based pilots underway.
“We need to do a business case analysis
to understand where we can gain value
add from the cloud,” said Abreu. “We
have a lot to learn here on that front to
understand what the cloud means to us
and whether or not those services will
be cost-effective, more secure, scalable,
and ensure that the user continues to
get what they need out of the network.”
Abreu said cybersecurity is the biggest challenge confronting NGEN. “Security is our top priority,” he said. “We
have to continue to improve our ability
to protect our systems, applications and
data. I’m not going to get into specifics
obviously, but we are continuing to put
tools and processes in place to achieve
that level of cybersecurity that our network operator needs to in order to defend the network properly.”
NGEN is aligning with DOD’s Joint
Regional Security Stacks (JRSS) effort to consolidate its security posture
across its infrastructure, giving adversaries less surface area to attack, and
will “start transition planning behind
that JRSS security boundary in FY18,”
said Abreu. “Of course, there’s a lot of
work that has to be done between now
and then to ensure that we understand
the capabilities that it will bring and to
make sure that we don’t do any harm
to our network, which we worked long
and hard to build defensive and internal
perimeters around to secure.”
“We’re continuously working on improving our cybersecurity posture, with
more than 15 projects underway this
year and more planned for next year,”
he concluded. “The threat continues to
evolve and we’ve got to do everything
we can to stay ahead of the threat. That’s
the only way we’re going to be able to
succeed in the long term when faced
with a variety of enemies that want to
get our data and disrupt our systems
and networks.” n
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CYBER WAR:
Can
deterrence
work?
As breaches mount, the military debates the
merits of a Cold War defense
BY MARK POMERLEAU
M
ilitary deterrence efforts are
as old as battle tactics. From
troop build-ups to increased
armaments to robust strategies on highly
advanced warfare such as nuclear arms,
military strategists and commanders have
intently studied the art of deterring adversaries.
But deterrence in cyberspace is a different game. With the proliferation of technology, the Internet and greater connectivity, malicious actors in cyberspace are
able to operate much more freely than in
the physical world. The number of cyberattacks on both government and commercial networks is growing, and established
practices for protecting those networks
could be falling short. Former director of
the National Security Agency Keith Alexander, in a keynote address earlier this
year at the American Enterprise Institute
said flatly, “I’d say our defense isn’t working.” Citing cyberattacks from Iran, China,
Russia and North Korea, Alexander told
the audience that “if everybody’s getting
hacked… industry and government… the
strategy that we’re working on is flawed.”
So is deterrence an option? Can the type
of military deterrence policies that have
worked in the physical world be applied
to cyberspace? It’s an issue military leaders
are starting to focus on.
As Scott Jasper, retired Navy captain and
a lecturer at the Center for Civil-Military
Relations and the National Security Affairs
Department at the Naval Postgraduate
School, wrote in a recent essay for Strategic Studies Quarterly (PDF), “The aim of
deterrence is to create disincentives for
hostile action and normally involves two
components: deterrence by punishment
(the threat of retaliation) and deterrence
“The U.S. is a glass
house when
it comes to cyber.”
— ERIC ROSENBACH, DOD CYBER
ADVISOR
by denial (the ability to prevent benefit).
Some notable scholars have suggested a
complementary third component: deterrence by entanglement (mutual interests)
that encourages responsible behavior of
actors based on economic and political
relationships.”
In an attempt to outline the Defense
Department’s framework and strategic
interests in cyber deterrence at a Senate
Armed Services Subcommittee hearing,
Eric Rosenbach, principal cyber advisor to
the Secretary of Defense, described deterrence policy as a “[w]hole-of-government
cyber strategy to deter attacks. This strategy depends on the totality of U.S. actions
to include declared deterrent policy, overall defensive posture, effective response
procedures, indication and warning capabilities, and the resilience of U.S. networks
and systems.”
In addition to DOD’s three missions for
cyberspace—defending DOD networks,
defending U.S. networks overall against
significant attacks and providing fullspectrum cyber support for military operations—Rosenbach outlined three roles
the Defense Department can play within
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A DOD graphic depicts integrated,
cyber, electronic and conventional
warfare.
state actors are can be deterred more than
others, while criminal, non-state actors
are the most difficult to deter, he said. “I
would say [adversaries] probably do view
it as low risk when it comes to exploitation
and trying to steal data,” Rosenbach said.
“I would say it’s considerably higher risk if
they were to conduct a destructive attack
against a DOD network – the deterrence
level there is much higher and I think they
see that as higher risk, which is what we
go for.”
“If everybody’s getting hacked…
the strategy that we’re working
on is flawed.”
–KEITH ALEXANDER, FORMER NSA DIRECTOR
the whole-of-government approach. “We
need to develop the capabilities to deny a
potential attack from achieving its desired
effect,” he said. “Second, the U.S. must
increase the cost of executing a cyberattack, and this is where DOD must be able
to provide the president with options to
respond to cyberattacks on the U.S., if required through cyber and other means…
And finally, we have to ensure that we are
resilient, so if there is an attack that we can
bounce back.”
STRIKING BACK?
Jasper in his essay noted that current
deterrence strategies, specifically those
involving retaliation, are compounded by
the fact that attributing a cyberattack to
its source is difficult given that Internet
routing can allow bad actors to conceal
their identity and give them plausible de-
niability. Rosenbach also addressed this
concern, saying that the government must
reduce anonymity in cyberspace so that
“adversaries who attack us don’t think that
they can get away with it.”
Given the anonymity in cyberspace,
typical military deterrence policies must
be tweaked and tailored to the specific
threat. For example, Rosenbach said, the
U.S. government’s response to a cyberattack might not be retaliation in the cyber realm. “[S]omething I would like to
emphasize is, although it’s a cyberattack,
we don’t think about the response purely
through cyber lens; it would be all the tools
of foreign policy and military options,” he
told lawmakers. One example is the economic sanctions imposed on North Korea
for the Sony hack.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of deterrence depends on the attacker. Certain
NO NUCLEAR OPTION
In terms of the overall efforts at of cyber
deterrence, Jasper wrote: “The concept
of deterrence is still hotly debated in the
cyber community, because, for instance,
traditional nuclear deterrence relies on
an adversary having knowledge of the
destruction that will result from transgressions, which is not possible in cyber because the secrecy of weapons is necessary
to preserve their effectiveness.”
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), during the
same subcommittee hearing where
Rosenbach spoke, suggested that kind
of Cold War approach, saying that cyber
threats to critical to critical infrastructure
could deter nation states, “just like the [intercontinental ballistic missiles] of years
ago – mutual assured destruction.” But
Rosenbach said that the notion of a comparable nuclear deterrent and cyber deterrent strategy is unfounded. “[T]he analogy
with nuclear part is not that strong,” he
said.
Rosenbach said the biggest challenge in
cyber deterrence and response efforts is a
balance between “making sure we deter
enough that the attack doesn’t come but
we don’t escalate things to the point that
bring more attacks upon ourselves,” he
stated. “The U.S. is a glass house when it
comes to cyber.” n
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UAS
&ROBOTICS
Air Force team develops
RPA collaboration system
The Web-bases SIRIS revamps the way crews work together
BY MARK POMERLEAU
A
group of resourceful Air Force
intelligence experts are being
recognized for taking existing
technology and developing a Web-based
system that makes collaboration on unmanned aircraft operations a lot easier for
air, ground and intelligence users.
The team will receive the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Achievement
Award for their work in developing the
Surveillance Intelligence Reconnaissance
Information System, or SIRIS. Requiring
only a Web browser and access to Google
Earth, SIRIS revamps the way in which
remotely piloted aircraft – the Air Force’s
preferred term for drones – crews share
information, including imagery, full-motion video, mission planning files, aircraft
locations, sensor points of interest, signals
intelligence and weather.
Young airman and pilots were restricted by existing platforms and technologies
because they “did not permit a shared
intelligence picture, limiting the ability to
collaborate with each other,” Col. Frances
Deutch, Ph.D., the Intelligence Innovation Programs director, said in an Air
Force news release.
“We chose a Web-based solution that
does not require a costly retrofit of the
platform, and we created rapid, sustainable innovations that were non-compartmentalized,” said Stephen Coffey, an RPA
subject matter expert at the Air Force’s ISR
Innovations Directorate.
Air Force researchers enhanced SIRIS’
capability by expanding its Internet Coordinate Extractor, or ICE, program, which
can monitor several chat rooms at once
and plots valuable information on Google
Earth for crews. This feature saves not
SIRIS was used to help
coordinate the response
to a 2013 wildfire at
Yosemite National Park.
only money but lives, Coffey said, because
“ICE allowed us to focus on Google Earth
in the moment, so instead of looking at six
computer displays, I’d look at one.” RPA
crews, with the advent of the ICE concept, could receive visual threat warnings
right on their map displays as opposed to
scouring chat rooms for intelligence – a
first of its kind occurrence.
Experts and researchers have larger
plans for RPAs other than providing ISR
(intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) and close air support, especially
as threat awareness and threat detection
continue to emerge in more sustainable
platforms. “We’re trying to get the user in
front of the technology, then they can tell
us in a more succinct and specific manner
what information they need,” Coffey said.
The SIRIS program was also used domestically to help first responders combat
forest fires in Yosemite National Park in
California, relaying images collected by
the California National Guard’s Predator
drones to local fire fighters. The SIRIS
program assisted in imagery, video and
collaboration with teams responding to
the incident.
Also worth noting, according to re-
ports by the Air Force Times, the initial
Air Force release indicated that this particular application was adjusted following
the shoot-down of a Predator belonging
to European Command in Syria as part
of Operation Inherent Resolve. The acknowledgement by the Air Force in the
release that the Predator was shot down in
the Syrian border town of Latakia, likely
by Syrian forces but it is still unclear, was
the first time the military publically stated
the aircraft was shot down. The Air Force
Times also discovered that following its
initial report, the Air Force actually removed language referencing the March
incident involving EUCOM’s Predator
drone.
“Applying technology without the skill
craft … had atrophied for us, since RPAs
had not been shot at for 20 years… Time
was not our friend in this particular case,
so it’s important that we had an early
adoption of the technology,” the report
quoted Coffey as saying in the initial Air
Force release. “The March shoot-down
was among the first times remotely piloted aircraft had been shot at,” the report
stated, relying again on Coffey’s comments in the initial release. n
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UAS
&ROBOTICS
Mabus: delays are holding back UCLASS
While Congress debates, the carrier-based drone program languishes
BY MARK POMERLEAU
N
avy Secretary Ray Mabus expressed frustration recently over
the delays with the Navy’s carrier-based unmanned aircraft program,
saying the debate over how the aircraft
will be used is hindering its development.
The Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS)
program, on which the Navy plans to
spend $3 billion by 2020, is being held up
by a debate with Congress over whether
its role would be primarily intelligence,
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) with limited strike capabilities, or primarily strike with limited ISR,
according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.
Some in Congress, such as Senate
Armed Services Chairman John McCain
(R-Ariz.), want to emphasize strike, while
the Navy has leaned toward ISR, with Mabus saying UCLASS is part of a more incremental approach toward autonomous
systems with deep strike capability.
Meanwhile, UCLASS’ development
languishes.
“We’ve had [a request for proposal]…
ready to go for a year and a half/two years
now, and it’s been held up because of a
look at overall ISR systems,” Mabus said
at an event at the American Enterprise
Institute. “I don’t know if the Navy sees
UCLASS as ISR … That’s certainly one
role, but it’s got a lot more roles … One of
the reasons we’d like to go ahead and get
the RFP out, is that we’d like to find out
what’s available out there in industry.”
Mabus said UCLASS would have strike
capabilities but operate in less contested
areas and would serve as a bridge to fully
autonomous systems capable of strike,
which he expects sometime in the 2020s.
GAO, in its report, said UCLASS currently stands to be ready for early operational
capacity in 2022, two years later than
planned. n
Navy Secretary
Ray Mabus
Next for the Air Force: Expendable drones?
BY DEFENSE SYSTEMS STAFF
T
he Air Force is looking to develop
low-cost UAS that could operate
in difficult environments and essentially be expendable. The service is
soliciting technology that would allow
for long-range, high-speed unmanned
aircraft with strike capability but with
a price tag lower than what it pays for
its current fleet. The solicitation says it
wants the UAS for operations “where
forward basing is difficult or prohibited.”
The Air Force notes that aircraft costs
are rising, driven by a focus on performance, reliability and durability. To date,
the military has acquired UAS—such as
the MQ-9 Reaper, which costs about $13
million each—with long lifecycles, just as
it does with manned aircraft. The service
wants to look into trading off some of
those attributes in favor of lowering the
cost, so that “loss of aircraft could be tolerated.” The Air Force suggests that low-
ering the bar on its usual requirements
could lead to innovations in design, and
allow for the use of commercial technologies and manufacturing techniques that
could cut costs.
At the moment, the Air Force said it is
willing to spend about $7.45 million for
a 30 month effort to “design, develop, assemble, and test a technical baseline for a
high speed, long range, low cost, limited
life strike UAS,” although the program is
flexible. n
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C4ISR
Vehicle-mounted Increment 2
equipment brings the network to
the company level.
Army taking tactical
network to the next stage
WIN-T Increment 2 is going to full-rate production
BY KEVIN McCANEY
T
he Army has received the goahead to take the second increment of its high-speed battlefield communications network into
full-rate production. The Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics issued a memorandum authorizing the next stages for
the Warfighter Information Network
– Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 2, contractor General Dynamics said.
WIN-T is the Army’s effort to
eventually extend a command-andcontrol view—including voice, data
and imagery—down to the squad level.
Increment 1 of WIN-T takes communications to the battalion level, in
at-the-halt environments such as a forward deployed base. Increment 2 puts
it on-the-go at the company level, with
equipment mounted on vehicles such
as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
vehicles, High Mobility Multi-purpose
Wheeled Vehicles and Strykers.
Increment 3, which will take highbandwidth communications further out
to soldiers the field while adding an air
tier, is being developed and tested under a $475 million contract awarded in
November 2013 to General Dynamics.
Currently, Increment 2 has been deployed at four division headquarters
and 12 brigade combat teams have.
General Dynamics said. It has been
used in Afghanistan to replace fixed
communications infrastructure that
was removed when U.S. forces closed
their bases there, and last year provided the communications backbone
in West Africa during the international
response to the Ebola epidemic.
WIN-T is a priority for the Army.
Despite an overall decline in recent
Defense Department spending, a DOD
report in March, which compared
spending between December 2013 and
December 2014, noted that the Army’s
spending on WIN-T had jumped by
36.2 percent.
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Working on expanding the tactical network also includes reducing
the complexity of network operations
and more nodes are added. And as the
Army eventually gets to Increment 3,
the equipment used for the first two
increments will stay in operation at
the battalion and company levels, re-
spectively. The Army recently awarded
General Dynamics a $36 million contract for maintenance and repair of
Increment 1 equipment. n
Device can track soldiers without GPS
WINS can locate a soldier on a map
when GPS signals are unavailable
BY KEVIN McCANEY
A
Or both. In 2011, Iranian engineers
jammed the GPS signal for an U.S. RQ170 Sentinel drone, then spoofed its coordinates to make it land in Iran instead
of its base in Afghanistan. University of
Texas students also have demonstrated
using spoofing to take control of unmanned aircraft and even an 80-foot
yacht.
rmy researchers are developing
a pocket-size device that will
give soldiers precise geolocation information even when GPS signals are unavailable.
The Warfighter Integrated Navigation
System (WINS), being developed at the
Communications Electronics
Research Development and Engineering Center, uses a variety
of sensors to track a soldier’s
movement from a last known
location, recording footsteps,
speed, time, altitude and other
factors to show the soldier’s location on a map.
“It’s got a number of inertial
sensors, such as a pedometer
and an accelerometer, things
you will find on your cell phone
but of a higher quality,” Osie
WINS, at center, uses inertial sensors to
David, a CERDEC researcher,
determine location.
said in a statement. “Even if the
enemy is denying you GPS or the terThe military doesn’t expect that it ever
rain is, you can still get known location will do without GPS—it’s still the most
on here so it will show up on your Nett accurate and far-reaching geolocation
Warrior device or your command and system ever created and likely will recontrol system.”
main so for the foreseeable future. But
Finding alternatives to GPS is a focus in addition to hardening GPS signals
for the Defense Department precisely against jamming and other electronic
for those times when Global Position- warfare attacks, researchers are working Systems signals don’t get through, ing on alternatives for those times when
whether because of terrain such as GPS service is blocked. The Defense
dense forests or jungles, or enemy in- Advanced Research Projects Agency, for
terference. GPS signals can be jammed example, has been developing chip-scale
even with low-powered devices or inertial measurement units that use
spoofed by stronger signals.
chip-scale atomic clocks for navigation.
U.K. researchers are working on a sensor
system that scans the environment and
cross-references that information with
a database of the terrain and structures
in an area. Maritime officials also are
considering an updated, digital version
of the Loran (Long Range Navigation)
system used to guide ships in World War
two but was eventually made obsolete by
GPS.
Like the DARPA and U.K.
projects, WINS would rely on
an initial GPS signal for a starting point, as well as for a corrective signal if it’s used for too
long, because its accuracy will
decrease over time. It will, however, display its error range so
the user knows when he or she
is looking at a rough estimate.
“It’s still better than having no
GPS at all,” David said.
Even if its accuracy is shortterm, WINS could provide a
vital link when necessary, such
as in a jungle, David said. “I’m navigating around and I lose the GPS because
with the triple-canopy jungle, the GPS
can’t penetrate that,” he said. “I don’t
know where I am on the map, so I’m in a
bad situation. If I want to know exactly
where I am so I can call for reinforcements or resupply, WINS is going to
give me my location on a map, no matter where I am.”
Although still in development, David
said he expects WINS or a subsequent
device built on WINS technology, will
someday be fielded. n
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 21
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CYBERDEFENSE
Army giving cyber warriors
a training range of their own
The Cyber Battle Ground will be open to all units later this year
BY MARK POMERLEAU
T
environments/configurations through
the cyber range and has incorporated
real world Cyber Actor/Cyber Threat
characterization, dynamic threat actor/
agent capability into training,” the release stated.
Several experts and military officials
have lauded the importance of additional training and greater “cyber hygiene” as a means of protecting against
threats and mounting a formidable
defense (which also translates into the
civilian government and commercial
realm as well).
“So when you look at cyber, where
are the weakest links in the chain across
our entire cyber domain?,” Adm. Paul
Zukunft, commandant of the Coast
Guard, said during a recent speech at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And that’s a bit challenging for us to be able to determine with
absolute certainty that we know where
every one of those weak links are. Recognizing that the biggest weak links are
the many operators that we have in that
cyber domain that don’t exercise good
cyber hygiene.”
According to the Defense Department’s most recent cyber strategy, released in April, the entire Cyber Mission Force eventually will comprise
he Army has been building up its
cyber workforce, but once those
soldiers are in the door they
still have to be trained. In order to help
speed up the process, the service’s Communications Electronic Command, or
CECOM, is launching a new training
range dedicated to cyber operations.
The Cyber Battle Ground is expected
to be open to all units in late 2015, the
Army said.
The range, whose creation was
prompted by a request from the 7th
Cyber Protection Brigade, or CPB,
will provide soldiers with a realistic environment for testing
skills learned and reinforced in
a classroom setting. “The range
is designed to reinforce learning
and build confidence in what
leadership acknowledges is an
agile skill set that will need to be
continuously honed in concert
with the ever-increasingly complex challenges of cybersecurity,”
said Michael Martinez, training
support division branch chief for
CECOM’s field support directorate. “To date, we’ve had at least
100 7th CPB soldiers take advantage of it.”
The cyber range is intended
to reduce the time and costs of
training cyber warriors, while
providing repeatable processes,
access to enterprise tools and
some services not available elseSoldiers at work in a cyber control center; the Army is hoping to train cyber
where. “CECOM can also develop
operators more quickly.
configurations to support multiple
22 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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cyber operators organized into 133
teams with a variety of mission sets
and goals, such as Cyber Protection
Forces to augment traditional defensive measures and defend priority
DOD networks and systems, National
Mission Forces to defend the United
States and its interests against cyberattacks of significant consequence, and
Combat Mission Forces to support
combatant commands by generating
integrated cyberspace effects in support of operational plans and contingency operations to name a few.
CECOM, headquartered at Aberdeen
Proving Ground, Md., says its aim is to
“develop, provide, integrate and sustain
the logistics and readiness of C4ISR systems and mission command capabilities
for joint, interagency and multi-national forces worldwide.” n
Exercise tests a whole-of-nation approach
BY MARK POMERLEAU
T
wo key words in defining a unified national cyber defense are
“operational” and “interoperable.”
More than 100 organizations from government, academia, industry and the international community recently worked
on developing those aspects during the
fourth annual Cyber Guard exercise,
from June 8 to June 26. The large-scale
exercise focused on building a whole-ofnation approach to defending networks,
protecting infrastructure and sharing information across established lines.
“Cyber Guard is designed to exercise
the interface between the Department of
Defense — the active and Reserve and
Guard components — that are focused
on the cyber mission, and to partner
with other elements of the U.S. government as well as state and local authorities,” U.S. Cyber Command Commander
Navy Adm. Michael S. Rogers said in a
statement.
“The greatest challenge in this exercise
is, how do we build those partnerships
between organizations that don’t necessarily have a common background,
a common verbiage, a common set of
terms, so how are we going to harness
the power of governmental capacity to
include our own department in defending critical infrastructure in the private
sector of the United States,” Rogers said.
The exercise took place at a Joint Staff
J7 facility in Suffolk, Va., which was designed to support a wide range of military tests and exercises.
Participants included the Homeland
Security Department, FBI, Federal Aviation Administration, members of the U.S.
Cyber Command, Northern Command,
Strategic Command, National Guard
teams from 16 states, service component
commands from each branch’s cyber
teams, reserve personnel from Army,
Navy, Marines and Air Force, private
industry partners from the financial and
Service members and civilians take
part in Cyber Guard in Suffolk, Va.
energy sectors and three private industry
information sharing and analysis centers, among others.
Cyber Guard had three phases, each
covering numerous support exercises.
Phase 1 involved state and federal support
for private, municipal and state owned
critical infrastructure in accordance with
the National Response Framework — a
guide to how the nation responds to all
types of disasters and emergencies — as
well as defense support to civil authorities; Phase 2 tested defense support to
federal agencies, and Phase 3 focused on
training and certification of DOD cyber
teams and joint cyber headquarters elements the fact sheet stated.
Other scenarios included training
on the industrial control systems (ICS)
commonly found in critical infrastructure facilities, as well as hands-on
exercises in classified network environments similar to DOD and non-DOD
networks, with blue teams defending
friendly networks from simulated attacks from red teams.
The addition this year of the private
sector, coordinated with DHS, represents a shift from a whole-of-government approach to a whole-of-nation
approach to cybersecurity and response,
according to the fact sheet. That mirrors
legislation recently proposed in Congress to provide legal protections and
safeguards to members of the private
sector that share cyber threat information with the government — something
Rogers has said is the thing he wants
most from Congress. Some, however,
have been critical of such proposals as
“surveillance by another name.”
The renewed desire to partner with
the private sector comes from not only
an intelligence and situational awareness
perspective, but infrastructure ownership as well. “Most critical infrastructure
in the United States, particularly in the
information technology area, is owned
by the private sector,” said Coast Guard
Rear Adm. Kevin Lunday, U.S. Cyber
Command’s director of training and exercises. “So we rely on them, particularly
when we are responding to a major incident or attack on the private sector.” n
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BATTLESPACE
TECH
Study: DOD needs to field
laser weapons ASAP
Report also recommends abandoning piecemeal approach
BY GEORGE LEOPOLD
A
mong the emerging components of the Defense Innovation
Initiative launched late last year
is a concerted push to develop directedenergy weapons, including high-energy
lasers and high-power microwaves.
As a number of test platforms are
fielded, including land- and sea-based
platforms like the anti-drone laser the
Navy deployed in the Persian Gulf last
year, military planners are attempting
to move beyond high-profile failures of
the past, most notably high-energy lasers for missile defense.
According to a recent study on direct-energy weapons by the Center for
a New American Security, “despite resource levels that are inadequate to fully
exploit the potential of directed-energy
weapons, there is substantial and growing evidence that laser and microwave
weapon systems are finally coming of
age for battlefield use.”
One reason for optimism about integrating such weapons into ground,
air and naval forces is that current programs are more modest that the overly
ambitious “Star Wars” missile defense
efforts of the 1980s. The think tank concluded that directed energy programs
could be used in mission applications
ranging from defending ships and
bases against certain forms of attack to
combating identification and counterelectronic missions.
The Air Force has not ruled out laser weapons as a possible counterspace
weapon to defend its satellite constellations. Based on the fear of creating new
debris fields in space—space junk that
could knock out critical infrastructure
The Army’s High Energy Laser mobile demonstrator is moving into
live-fire tests.
on Earth—analysts think laser technologies that could blind but not destroy
satellites are a likely focus of Air Force
development.
Meanwhile, the pace of development
is quickening. For example, the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency
announced in May that the High-Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System
would move from laboratory development into Air Force field-testing. And
the Army’s High Energy Laser mobile
demonstrator is advancing to live-fire
tests.
The security study listed a number
of features that would speed the deployment of directed-energy weapons,
among the ability to operate at high- or
low-power output and at multiple frequencies. The authors also recommend
compact, energy-efficient systems with
modular designs that could be applies
to a variety of platforms.
Before such systems can be fielded,
the report argues, DOD needs a departmentwide strategic plan for directedenergy weapons. It noted that the Navy
has developed but not yet released a
directed-energy roadmap. Meanwhile,
Army and Air Force labs have demonstrated prototype capabilities. Those
efforts must be merged, the study recommended: “DOD must develop and
promulgate cross-service approaches
to [directed-energy] weapons development.”
24 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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E
CH
The report also recommends that
DOD replace its current “laissez-faire
developmental approach” in which
“communities of interest” within the
Office of the Secretary of Defense pur-
sue directed-energy development on a
piecemeal basis.
Along with funding development,
a directed energy effort should target
“low-hanging fruit” to get demonstra-
tion projects into the field as quickly
as possible. The Navy’s Laser Weapon
System deployed aboard the USS Ponce
last year is “at the head of the queue,” the
study noted. n
The elements of the next-generation
command post
It will be a lot easier to set up and tear down
BY KEVIN McCANEY
missions are paramount, until a collab- such as call managers and security and
n Army command post is a orative effort produced secure 4G LTE/ bandwidth management tools.
lot like a data center—a cen- Wi-Fi for use in the field. The National
A microgrid power generation systral hub for the information, Security Agency, Special Operations tem called Intelligent Power also manimages and communications that go Command, Joint Staff and Nett Warrior ages power use, preventing overloads
into military operations. And like data program office worked to develop and through rebalancing and has cut fuel
centers, they can be unwieldy, cluttered implement an NSA encryption system, consumption by 25 to 40 percent and
with all kinds of hardware, the transit called Commercial Solutions for Classi- the number of required generators from
cases, wires, cables and more
18 to four. The Army also has
wires and cables.
adapted the transmissions in
For a mobile Army that
some of its vehicles so that
is steadily pushing its comthey could produce enough
mand-and-control
view
electrical power for use within
out to soldiers in the field,
a vehicle or even a small commanaging a command post,
mand post.
which could take a platoon
of soldiers a whole day to set
THE WORLD WIDE WEB
up, could be a drag on operaThe Army is ready to deploy
tions. But that is changing, as
the Web-based Command
new technologies and a betPost Computing Environter acquisition approach help
ment, or CP CE, which will
create a lighter, faster and
eliminate the multiple workSecure wireless and a Web-based environment will
more efficient central hub.
stations that had them swivelsimplify command posts.
The Army recently detailed
ing and rolling from point to
how it’s increasing command post ca- fied. Adding what the Army only called point in a chair, pulling data from one
pabilities while reducing SWaP (size, a “special sauce” made it fit for use on system and manually entering it into
weight and power) requirements, in military networks.
another.
many ways with technologies that are
Not only does it get rid of wires, it
CP CE provides an integrated envifamiliar to everyday users on the street. also frees commanders and staff from ronment designed to let commanders
The future command post will be light- their workstations, allowing them to and soldiers use one system to share
er to ship, more quickly set up and torn work with classified information from data, imagery and warfighting services
down, and more efficient to use. Here smartphones and tablets without the ranging from logistics, intelligence and
are the basic elements.
extra baggage of encryption hardware.
airspace management to fires and maneuvers. The system, Version 1 of which
SECURE WIRELESS
SWAPING OUT
is ready for fielding, will simplify the
If you want to unclutter a workspace, One of the key technologies the Army is computing backend and give users one
one of the first things to do is get rid of using to lighten the command post load system to start up rather than many. It
wires. That was easier said than done is virtualization. Virtualizing applica- also means that soldiers will only have
for the Army, for whom secure trans- tions eliminates hardware appliances to train on one system. n
A
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 25
0815ds_024-025.indd 25
7/7/15 9:22 AM
IT
DISA’s 5-year plan stresses
joint environment, cyber operations
Strategy also calls for supporting anytime/anywhere access
BY DEFENSE SYSTEMS STAFF
T
he Defense Information Systems
Agency has released a new fiveyear strategic plan that focuses
on supporting the Pentagon’s Joint Information Environment and cyberspace
operations while cutting back on duplicative systems.
The plan for 2015-2020, released
June 16, also calls for streamlining its
networks, taking advantage of commercial technology and supporting mobile
computing to guarantee authorized
personnel anytime/anywhere access to
Defense Department networks.
Release of the document is likely the
last major act of DISA Director Lt. Gen.
Ronnie Hawkins, who is set to step
down and be replaced by DISA’s Vice
Director Maj. Gen. Alan Lynn.
In the plan, Hawkins, who has been
DISA’s director since 2012, said DISA
will “be aggressive in our pursuit of efficiency and effectiveness, and no longer
support the operations of legacy and
costly applications without senior leadership’s approval and direction.”
Among the goals laid out in the plan
is development of the Joint Information
Headquarters for DOD Information
Networks, a new office set up earlier
this year that also falls under the purview of the DISA director. The JIE, an
integrated architecture intended to accommodate all of the military services
as well as other DOD components and
coalition partners, “remains the cornerstone of the Department’s future,”
the plan states. DISA, as one of its key
goals, plans to continue to deploy the
Joint Regional Security Stacks that
serve as the cybersecurity foundation
of JIE.
Along those lines, the plan also puts
a heavy focus on cybersecurity. “We are
first and foremost” DOD’s cyberspace
IT combat support agency, Hawkins
writes. DISA will continue to support
development of the cyber workforce,
while working with the Intelligence
Community and industry in developing
countermeasures to the range of threats.
A key to DOD’s networking plans and
anytime/anywhere access is cloud computing. The plan says that both internal
and commercials clouds will be part of
a “global elastic infrastructure” that will
also incorporate collaboration tools and
mobile computing. n
It lives! Navy still paying for XP support
BY DEFENSE SYSTEMS STAFF
T
he Navy may have removed Windows XP from the Navy-Marine
Corps Intranet, but obviously
that doesn’t mean there aren’t still pockets of XP around the service.
And some pretty big pockets at that,
as the Space and Naval Warfare Systems
Command recently awarded Microsoft
a $9.1 million contract to continue the
company’s Premier and Custom support
services for 100,000 workstations still
running XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2003
and Server 2003. The contract is for services through July 12, 2016, but includes
options that, if exercised, would continue support until June 2017 and bring the
total tab to $30.8 million.
Microsoft quit selling XP in 2010 and
ended its regular, free support for XP
and the 2003 iterations of Office and
Exchange in April 2014, as it encouraged users and organizations to move to
newer versions. Support for Server 2003
is due to end July 14. But the company
does offer continued support—which
includes security and other upgrades—
for a price, and XP still has plenty of
users.
Earlier this year, Net Applications
said XP, the first version of which was
released August 2001, still accounts for
almost 17 percent of desktop operating
systems worldwide. Another website
analyst, StatCounter, said the number
was more like 11 percent. Either way,
that covers a lot of computers, including,
for example, about 10,000 at the Labor
Department, some 35 percent of users at
the British National Health Services—
and 100,000 workstations in the Navy.
The Navy began moving away from
XP in 2013 and plans eventually to
adopt Windows 10, which is set to be
released July 29. In the meantime, it has
to provide protections for systems that
haven’t been upgraded, hence the deal
with Microsoft. On the bright side, $9.1
million for 100,000 computers works
out to $91 per machine, which at least
costs less than a new OS for each one. n
26 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_026-027.indd 26
7/7/15 9:26 AM
Analysts: space risk is growing
Debate rages over how to best protect satellite systems
BY GEORGE LEOPOLD
A
Department in 2014 by the Eisenhower
Center for Space and Defense Studies outlined a series of escalating steps
aimed at blunting asymmetric attacks
on U.S. space assets.
The proposed layered defenses include: diplomacy and enforcement of
international norms; military and commercial alliances; resilience, or demonstrating the ability to withstand a space
attack; and, finally, retaliation.
Retaliation would include a “demonstrated ability of the United States
to deliver unacceptable damage even if
confronted with a broad spectrum of
debate is raging among U.S.
policy wonks over how best to
prevent a “space Pearl Harbor.”
Those concerns have grown in recent
years with light-saber-rattling between
the U.S. and China over a debris-generating Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) test
in 2007, along with growing tensions
between Moscow and Washington.
Some even worry that increased “counterspace testing” in the form of kinetic
ASAT tests, jamming and the use of
lasers to blind satellite optics could
eventually leave low Earth orbit unusable.
The U.S. National Security Space
Strategy highlights the fact that
“space is increasingly congested.
Growing global space activity and
testing of China’s destructive antisatellite system have increased congestion in important areas in space.
“
The debate over space deterrence
is playing out in space policy journals in which analysts have argued
back and forth over whether the
current U.S military space strategy
requires an overhaul. Meanwhile,
experts are fearful that U.S. space
assets like military communications
satellites are especially vulnerable
to asymmetric warfare. Indeed, the
U.S. military is far more reliant on
space systems than Russia or China,
a reality some policy makers assert
China is attempting to exploit.
As U.S. counterspace strategy
evolves, experts are debating whether traditional space deterrence
should evolve along with growing
threats. Proposed revisions to the
U.S military space strategy have
argued for a layered approach to Analysts stress the need to protect
deterring space attacks. Recommen- satellites such as the Wideband Global
dations submitted to the Defense SATCOM spacecraft.
attacks against its space assets as well
as those available to its allies and the
commercial sector,” Ambassador Roger
G. Harrison and retired Lt. Col. Deron
Jackson of the Eisenhower Center wrote
in the journal The Space Review. Harrison and Jackson, respectively the
former and current directors of the
Eisenhower Center, were responding to
criticism of the think tank’s space deterrence proposals.
Christopher Stone, a space policy
analyst, argued that the layered defense approach leaves U.S. space assets
vulnerable in an asymmetric conflict.
China followed its 2007 test with
additional kinetic ASAT tests along
with “lasing of satellites and an apparent new norm of nation-state
behavior in space via the tripling of
reversible counterspace attacks such
as jamming and other means of interference,” Stone asserted.
In response, Harrison and Jackson acknowledged: “An enemy that
can put the United States off balance
through an attack on space systems, but is not equally dependent
on space systems to coordinate its
own military operations, will be on
its way to victory while American
strategists are looking to assess the
effects of retaliation against the enemy’s space assets.”
Stone argues that military planners must design “future architectures and strategies for space security so that we are better able to
tailor our deterrence strategy to the
adversaries we might face, and are
already facing….”
To some extent, the Air Force
has begun doing just that with the
planned launched of maneuverable
communications satellites and increased testing of laser weapons that
could be used as part of an overall
counterspace strategy. n
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 27
0815ds_026-027.indd 27
7/9/15 4:48 PM
MOBILE
High-bandwidth battlefield radio
doesn’t need satellites
Vehicle-mounted system a ‘game changer’ for tactical comm
BY MARK POMERLEAU
T
he Army has developed a
method for improved battlefield
communication without the
need for satellites. Vehicle-mounted,
high-bandwidth networking radios
that use line-of-sight communication
waveforms link soldiers at the company level with battalion and brigade
commands, providing ground-level
connectivity.
Mid-tier networking vehicular radios, or MNVRs, allow for rapid exchange of voice messages, images and
video with commanders.
“MNVR meets the need of getting
data down to the soldiers,” Lt. Col.
Stephen Dail, communications officer
for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st
Armored Division, said in an Army announcement. “The fact that you have
the ability to push data back out from
locations in the field and graphically
get that information back to higher
headquarters—who has the expertise
to examine it and potentially get information back to the Soldiers while
they’re still on the ground so they can
react—is a game changer.”
The MNVR underwent limited user
tests at the recent Network Integration Evaluation to ensure it is ready to
be deployed as part of the Army’s next
network capability set. MNVR testing at NIE involved mounting it onto
Strykers, Mine-Resistant, AmbushProtected vehicles and High-Mobility,
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, the
Army said.
The Army wants to ensure that the
MNVR is capable of handling a wide
range of environments. “We are currently completing a tropic field experiment in Panama, where the radios will
be subjected to high temperatures,
humidity and fungus to see how well
they perform in these conditions,” said
Eric Goodman, product manager for
MNVR. “While this is not a pass-fail
event, we will use the information to set
a base line for future evaluations.”
One of the draws for the MNVR is its
independence from satellites to provide
ground-level connectivity. The system
uses Wideband Networking Waveform
and Soldier Radio Waveform operating
as a node to hop from one MNVR to
another until it reaches its destination
the Army release stated.
“By using these waveforms to link
lower-echelon digital radios, like the
Rifleman and Manpack, to Warfighter
Information Network-Tactical, also
known as WIN-T, the MNVR provides
a significant tactical advantage for Soldiers. Since the MNVR is integrated
into Army tactical vehicles, it ensures
wireless communications and networking services for both mobile and stationery forces,” according to the release.
Additional testing measured the
MNVR’s ability to integrate with other
communication systems and radios
such as the WIN-T. n
A soldier operates the MNVR during a test at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
28 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_028-030.indd 28
7/7/15 9:30 AM
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MOBILE
DISA releases a heavy-duty suite
for mobile classified communications
Kit will allow secure voice, video and data access to SIPRNet
BY KEVIN McCANEY
D
efense Department users will
now have mobile access to
classified voice, video and data
communications from any Internet connection, even if that level of security
does require carrying some extra weight.
The Defense Information Systems
Agency has made the DOD Enterprise
Classified Travel Kit Gateway (DECTKGW), previously available to only a few
users, available throughout the department, DISA said in an announcement.
High-level officials, of course, will be the
most likely users.
The gateway enables a virtual private
network connection to DOD’s Secret
IP Router Network and allows users
to make classified voice calls through
DISA’s Enterprise Classified Voice over
IP service.
What makes it all work is a support
kit, which is where the weight comes
in. Two kits currently are approved: the
18-pound Executive Voice Kit, which
lets users make classified calls or access the SIPRNet; and the 12-pound
Executive Communications Kit, which
enables concurrent classified voice and
data use. A third kit undergoing testing is the Secure Flyaway Kit, which
will allow concurrent voice, video, and
data use and will check in at 19 pounds.
DISA expects it to be approved by fourth
quarter of this fiscal year.
All of the kits use High Assurance IP
Encryptor (HAIPE) devices, which are
Type 1 encryption devices that comply
with National Security Agency specifications. With a kit, a user can connect
to DECTK infrastructure, hosted at the
Defense Enterprise Computing Center,
via a hard Ethernet connection, the kit’s
built-in wireless broadband router or a
USB modem air card. The user would
then use a crypto ignition key and a
username and password for voice service, or a SIPRNet hard token for data
access.
The DECTK-GW kits will replace
the Executive Voice Kits developed and
managed by the Joint Communications
Support Element at MacDill Air Force
Base, Fla. Those voice-only kits—whose
creation was prompted by a failed 2012
phone call between President Obama,
then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey—have
been used by senior leaders and to support communications during relief efforts such as those following Typhoon
Haiyan in the Philippines.
DISA said it will first transition JSCE
users to the new infrastructure and then
begin taking on new customers. n
Navy awards $479M deal
for joint tactical radios
BY DEFENSE SYSTEMS STAFF
T
he Navy has awarded ViaSat a
contract potentially worth $478.8
million for Link 16 radios that
allow joint forces’ aircraft, ships and
ground forces to share tactical information—whether data, images or digital
voice—in near-real time.
The five-year contract, awarded by the
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego, calls for the production, development and sustainment of the
software-defined Multifunctional Infor-
mation Distribution System Joint Tactical
Radio Systems (MIDS JTRS) terminals.
The MIDS JTRS terminal (PDF),
which is upgrading the MIDS-LVT terminal, is a four-channel jam-resistant
radio with three other channels for future growth and includes advanced networking waveforms such as the Tactical
Targeting Network Technology, a lowlatency technology used in ad hoc networks at the tactical edge. It makes use
of Link 16, a National Security Agencycertified tactical data exchange network.
High-speed and jam-resistant, Link 16
allows long-range, line-of-sight communications among U.S., NATO and other
approved forces.
The radios will support communications for the Navy, other U.S. military
forces and coalition partners. In making the contract award, SPAWAR said
99 percent of the radios would go to the
Navy and “possibly” other U.S. services,
with the remaining 1 percent being available to as many as two dozen other countries and NATO. n
30 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_028-030.indd 30
7/7/15 9:30 AM
DEFENSESYSTEMS
K N O W L E D G E T E C H N O L O G I E S A N D N E T- E N A B L E D W A R F A R E
Where you need us most.
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MOBILE
Now, even small drones can serve
as secure communications nodes
Harris developed the Small Secure Data Link in 90 days
BY KEVIN McCANEY
T
he Marine Corps has tested
expanding its battlefield communications with a small,
lightweight device that fits onto an
unmanned RQ-11 Raven’s nose and
extends secure communications well
beyond line of sight for Marines in the
field.
The Small Secure Data Link (SSDL),
made by Harris Corp., is a wideband
networking radio that, during the tests
earlier this year during the Marines’
Talon Reach exercises in California,
acted as a replay node for soldiers
down to the squad level, according to
an announcement from the company.
And at 25 cubic centimeters (3 inches
by 5.3 inches by 1.6 inches) and a
weight of 18 ounces, it’s the smallest,
lightest and lowest-power VHF/UHF
software-defined radio certified for Secret and lower classifications.
Talon Reach was the first time the
Marines had tested SSDL, which is
based on Harris’ handheld Falcon III
AN/PRC-152A radio, which the Marines, other services and Special Forces
have been using for years, including as
part of the Joint Tactical Radio System
program.
Harris is making use of technology
developed for other unmanned systems, such as the RQ-21A Blackjack,
and applying it to the Raven, giving
Marines long-range communications
unencumbered by obstructions on the
ground, Ed Zoiss, vice president and
general manager for Defense Programs
in Harris Government Communications Systems, said in a statement.
Serving as communications relays
has been one of the primary functions
of UAS over the years, in addition to
their ISR (intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance) duties. But it’s mainly
been the province of large drones like
the Air Force’s Global Hawk or even
mid-size systems like the catapult-
launched Blackjack.
Size, weight and power (SWaP) requirements for radios have put limits
on what could be done with smaller
drones like the hand-launched Raven.
At 3 feet long with a 4.5-fopot wingspan and weighing 4.2 pounds, it’s not
made to carry much of a payload other
than its ISR cameras. It has, however,
proved to be a popular tool with the
Marines, Army and Air Force. The Marines, in fact, last year made training
on the Raven part of the basic training
for new officers.
Harris, building on existing technologies, was able to come up with a
nose-cone design light enough for the
Raven, as part of a process that took
only 90 days, the company said. With
a range of 6.2 miles at altitudes up to
500 feet, and flight durations of 60 to
90 minutes, the Raven can now help
forces get around some of the limits of
communications in contested environments. n
A Marine launches a Raven UAS.
32 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_028-032.indd 32
7/8/15 2:28 PM
INDEX OF ADVERTISERS
Adobe Systems Inc
www.adobe.com/government . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Defense Systems Tablet
Defense Systems Tablet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Enterprise Architecture East
www.GovEAconference.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Face-to-Face Event Series
www.DefenseSystems.com/events . . . . . . . . 17
Geico
www.geico.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
TechMentor
www.techmentorevents.com/redmond . . . . . 29
Visual Studios Live - New York
www.vslive.com/newyork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
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DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 33
0815ds_033.indd 33
7/10/15 10:40 AM
COMMENT
To move forward, the Army
must leave the past behind
A successful modernization involves new, lightweight tech
BY JOEL DOLISY
N
ot to be outdone in the race for
federal network modernization, the Army earlier this year
issued the Army Network Campaign
Plan (ANCP). Created by Lt. Gen. Robert Ferrell, the Army’s CIO, the ANCP
“outlines current efforts that posture
the Army for success in a cloud-based
world” and provides “the vision and direction that set conditions for and lay a
path to Network 2020 and
beyond.”
These broad and bold
statements encompass several things. First, there’s
the Army’s desire to create
a network that aligns with
DISA’s Joint Information
Environment (JIE) and the
Defense Department’s modernization
goals, which include better insight into
what’s happening within its networks
and tighter security postures. Second,
there’s the pressing need to vastly improve the services the Army is able to
deliver to personnel, including, as outlined in the ANCP, everything from
“lighter, more mobile command posts
to austere environments that will securely connect the network and access
information.”
There’s also the desire to simply
streamline operations and reduce costs.
Every federal IT manager’s budget is
under a microscope, and it’s no longer
feasible to have different teams working
on overlapping or redundant tasks.
Beyond the fact that this approach
inhibits operational efficiency, it also
impacts costs; defense agencies literally
can no longer afford to purchase separate solutions for security and operations teams. Today, they need a single
solution with dual use that can handle
both operational and security requirements.
A FIT FOR THE ANCP
The need for greater agility outlined in
the ANCP dictates that operations and
security teams become more integrated
and unified. The responsibilities of one
tions and it requires letting go of past
methodologies. The same mindset that
contributes to that effort should also
be applied to the types of solutions the
Army uses moving forward, because the
ANCP will not be successful if there is
a continued dependence on legacy IT
solutions.
It used to be fine for defense agencies
to throw their lots in with one software
behemoth controlling large segments
of their entire IT infrastructure, but
those days of expensive, proprietary solutions are over. Army
IT professionals are no longer
beholden to the technologies
that may have served them very
well for the past few decades,
because the commercial market
for IT management tools now
has lightweight, affordable and
easy-to-deploy solutions.
The willingness to let go of the past is
the evolution of federal IT, and is at the
heart of all modernization efforts. Managers must not fall into the problem that
a recent Solar Winds survey unveiled,
which is that a significant number of
federal IT professionals view their CIOs
as barriers to adopting new technology.
The fact that Ferrell and his team
developed a plan as overarching as the
ANCP indicates they are not among this
group of CIOs. In fact, the plan itself
shows vision and a great desire to help
the Army “be all it can be.” Now, the
organization just needs to fully embrace
new methodologies and technologies to
reach that goal. n
The willingness to
let go of the past
is the evolution of
federal IT.
can have a great impact on the other.
For example, a network manager will
have a good grasp of the types of devices
that are impacting network traffic, and
those devices—laptops, tablets, mobile
technologies, and more—could have a
direct effect on network security. Working together, cybersecurity and operations teams can share common intelligence that can help them more quickly
respond to threats and other network
problems.
Similarly, many of today’s network
monitoring tools not only report on the
overall performance of the network, but
also provide indications of potential security threats and remediation options.
A CRITICAL STEP
Combing operations and security teams
is a new concept for many organiza-
Joel Dolisy is the CIO and CTO at SolarWinds.
34 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_034.indd 34
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K N O W L E D G E T E C H N O L O G I E S A N D N E T- E N A B L E D W A R F A R E
Volume 9, Number 4 | www.DefenseSystems.com
July/August 2015
THE
NAVY
OWNS
UP
Taking control
of the network
with NGEN
can help avoid
NMCI’s
missteps
CYBER DEFENSE
Can a Cold War approach
work for cyber defense?
DEFENSE IT
Are satellite systems
facing a ‘space
Pearl Harbor’?
0815ds_0c1.indd 1
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CONTENTS | JULY/AUGUST 2015
SPECIAL REPORT
Owning IT
With NGEN, Navy takes control of the network,
vowing not to repeat the pitfalls of NMCI
PAGE 10
FEATURES
BATTLESPACE TECH
14 As attacks mount, officials debate whether a Cold ..
24 Study: DOD can’t delay in developing and
War-style approach to deterrence can work.
25 Why the command post of the future will be
UAS & ROBOTICS
16 An Air Force research team changes the way
deploying laser weapons
UAS crews can collaborate
simpler, lighter
DEFENSE IT
18 The Army is developing a ‘flying motorcycle’
26 DISA’s five-year plan stresses JIE,
for the battlefield
cyber operations
27 Is a ‘space Pearl Harbor’ inevitable?
C4ISR
20 The Warfighter Information Network-Tactical
MOBILE
28 High-bandwidth battlefield radio doesn’t
gets to the next level
21 A pocket-size device can track soldiers without
the need for GPS
need satellites
30 DISA releases a heavy-duty suite for mobile
CYBER DEFENSE
classified comm
22 The Army is giving cyber warriors a training range
DEPARTMENTS
6
of their own
23 Cyber Guard exercise expands to a
FORWARD OBSERVER
34 COMMENT
whole-of-nation approach
The Defense
Systems
Network
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4 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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PARTNERING MEDIA
PRODUCED BY
6/5/15 10:58 AM
Forward
Observer
Hawking
for NATO
NATO and Northrop Grumman
have unveiled the first of
five planned Alliance Ground
Surveillance (AGS) aircraft,
which are intended to expand
ISR capability for NATO and
Trash talking
allied forces. The AGS is a high-
One Air Force base’s trash has turned out to be a treasure for
altitude, long-range unmanned
system based on the U.S. Global
Hawk Block 40 aircraft. It will
be integrated into a broader
system-of-systems approach
to support NATO missions
such as protection of ground
streamlining communications between ground forces and drone
operators, thanks to a young sensor operator’s innovation. The
“Frankenphone”—so dubbed because it is made up materials slated
for scrap—solved stove-piped communications problem that kept UAV
pilots’ radio communications and the phone lines to joint terminal
attack controllers separate. Frankenphone, built by Staff Sgt. Marion
troops and civilian populations,
at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., ties the phone line directly into the
border control, maritime safety,
pilot’s headset intercom, which keeps the pilots’ hands free while
anti-terrorism activities and
keeping entire aircrew in the loop. “While the design is simple, what
humanitarian assistance in
the Frankenphone does for the Air Force is nothing short of incredible,”
natural disasters.
said Gen. Herbert J. Carlisle, the commander of Air Combat Command.
6 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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Bandwidth booster
The Navy’s high-powered new satellite communications
system now covers about three-quarters of the globe, after
the third of four planned satellites recently completed on-orbit
testing and was accepted into service by the Navy. The Mobile
User Objective System satellite, MUOS-3 (seen here being
prepared for launch), made by Lockheed Martin, was launched
Jan. 20 and has moved to its on-orbit operational slot. MUOS
provides secure, high-speed, IP-based voice, video and
mission data, and delivers a 16-fold increase in transmission
throughput over the current Ultra High Frequency satellite
system. The first two satellites in the system were launched
in 2012 and 2013. A fourth is set for launch later this year to
complete the constellation.
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 7
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Forward
Observer
Becoming
one with a
computer
Can you control a computer
with your thoughts? The Army
Research Lab and university
researchers are working on
it, using an EEG-based based
brain-computer interface, or
BCI, to meld the mind with
software. It’s a long way
off, but it could transform
applications ranging from
medical treatments to how
soldiers communicate on the
battlefield.
The pulse of future weapons
The Air Force Research Laboratory and Boeing have been
working on an electromagnetic pulse weapon for several
years, with the goal of using high-powered microwaves to
take out electronics and computer systems without the death
and destruction that comes with conventional weapons.
Now that system, CHAMP, for Counter-electronics Highpowered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, reportedly
is mature and is being miniaturized to fit the Joint Airto-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM-ER), which ARL has
determined is CHAMP’s optimal vehicle.
8 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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EDITOR’S DISPATCH
BY
KEVIN
McCANEY
Cyber Pearl Harbor? Nah.
T
he hack of the Office of Personnel Management that
compromised records of as many as 18 million current and
former federal employees roiled the cyber waters around
Washington, with some security experts and GOP critics of the
administration raising the specter of a familiar Internet fear: a “cyber
Pearl Harbor.”
As shorthand for the idea of a major, damaging, retaliation-worthy
cyberattack, the phrase works pretty well. But how likely is it?
On the one hand, in a Pew Research Center report released last
fall, 61 percent of the 1,642 technology experts canvassed said that
by 2025 a major cyberattack will cause “widespread harm,” including
loss of life and/or property lost/damaged/stolen to the tune of tens
of billions of dollars. On the other hand, 39 percent of those experts
thought the idea was hooey, telling Pew that many security fears
are trumped up by companies that profit from protecting against
threats. (It’s also worth noting that the percentages might not mean
much, since this was an opt-in process, rather than a randomized,
representative survey; Pew chose the word “canvass” deliberately.)
There’s no doubt that the Internet is a risky place, as the recent
spate of cyberattacks against government and industry—variously
Shedding light on
space junk
The Naval Research Lab has received a
patent for it Optical Orbital Debris Spotter,
a small, low-power, low-cost local system
that can help better track the growing
attributed to Russia, China, North Korea and others—show. In
addition to personal data and intellectual property, there are threats
to an increasingly connected infrastructure and the Internet of Things.
Infrastructure, in fact, was a big concern for the 61 percent in Pew’s
report.
The threats are real—and the Pentagon has said that a significant
cyberattack could be seen as an act of war. But how likely are they to
rise to that level? Some experts are skeptical. Eric Gartzke, writing in
a 2013 issue of International Security, called a cyber Pearl Harbor—
amount of debris in space, some of which
and for that matter, cyberwar itself—a “myth,” saying that, unless it
is pretty tiny. NRL said the sensor creates a
accompanies an actual physical war, there’s little benefit to taking the
continuous light sheet by using a collimated
light source, such as a low-power laser, and
time and expense of mounting a truly large-scale, damaging attack.
Others have agreed.
And cyber weapons are hard. Take Stuxnet, the reportedly U.S./
a conic mirror. Any particles, even those as
Israeli-developed malware designed to disrupt Iran’s uranium
small as 0.01 centimeters, crossing into the
processing. Called the first weaponized malware, it took years and
permanently illuminated light sheet scatter
millions of dollars to develop and deploy and, although technically
the light. The spotter can then gather data
about the particles that can be added to
modeling software to help increase the
understanding of space debris.
successful, it only put a crimp in Iran’s nuclear program, without
causing any real long-term damage. A reported attempt to set a
Stuxnet relative loose in North Korea failed.
In the world where technology is always changing and improving,
you never want to say never. But for now at least, the real online
threat isn’t a cyber Pearl Harbor but the thousand cuts of constant
hacks and breaches. And as OPM could attest, that’s bad enough.
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 9
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Owning
IT
With NGEN, Navy
takes control of the network,
vowing not to repeat the
pitfalls of NMCI
BY GREG SLABODKIN
10 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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g
W
hen the $8.8 billion Navy Marine Corps Intranet
(NMCI) contract was awarded to EDS—now a division of HP—in 2000, the military service touted
the undertaking to provide a single, secure, enterprise-wide
network as the world’s largest corporate intranet, second in
size only to the Internet itself.
NMCI consolidated literally thousands of Navy and Marine Corps computer networks into a single, managed service
with a standardized, end-to-end, shore-based IT capability for voice, video and data communications connecting
more than 700,000 users utilizing more than 300,000 “seats”
(desktops/laptops). However, given its sheer scale, NMCI was
plagued with problems from the start.
Technical and logistical challenges led to delays in the
fielding of the network, which resulted in big financial
losses for EDS. And results of NMCI user surveys at the
time repeatedly showed widespread frustration with the
network, which was described as unstable and slow,
among other sometimes more colorful adjectives.
Critics questioned the Navy’s reasoning for adopting a fully outsourced model that essentially handed
over its entire IT infrastructure to EDS as a contractor-owned network. When the NMCI contract
ended in 2010 and a new Continuity of Services
Contract (CoSC) began, the service wasn’t about to
repeat its past mistakes. Though the Navy retained
the same scope of services with Hewlett-Pack-
ard in the CoSC contract, the network became a governmentowned, contractor-supported, managed service during the
migration to the next phase of the massive intranet, known as
Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN).
NEW APPROACH
A $3.5 billion contract awarded in 2013 to incumbent HP to
transition IT services from NMCI to NGEN was completed
in September 2014—three months ahead of schedule. While
NGEN provides all of the same services that are available under NMCI, the Navy’s acquisition approach was quite different in the evolution of the Department of Navy’s shore-based
enterprise network.
Because NGEN is a government-owned network, the
Navy believes it has greater visibility into its enterprise
services and is better able to manage costs than was possible with NMCI, along with providing for more flexible and
adaptable IT network services. Capt. Michael Abreu, program manager for
the Naval Enterprise Networks
Program Management Office,
calls NGEN’s “governmentowned, contractor-operated”
model unique in the defense community and the
reason for its success to
date.
Students from the Center for
Information Dominance work
on the Navy’s network.
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 11
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NGEN
“We obviously went off and bought
the intellectual property and the infrastructure of the network for a reason—
in order to help our network operator
exercise full command and control of
the network itself,” Abreu said. “There
are very big advantages that come with
that. We have that control and the
ability to make decisions as to how to
provision the network effectively over
time. The network operator has the
ability to maneuver that network in a
more holistic and faster manner than
in the past.”
Abreu boasts that his program office is “the largest and only enterprise
IT services program of record” in the
Defense Department, and that NGEN’s
contracting competition will save taxpayers more than $1 billion over the
2014-2019 Future Year Defense Program in how the Navy is acquiring
these services. According to Abreu,
the Navy is spending $20 million per
month less than what it was paying
previously under NMCI due to competitive pricing. Government ownership is a different operating environment and acquisition model, he said,
acknowledging that the Navy is learn-
Along with the Navy, the
Marines took back control of
their IT systems with NGEN.
it was quite the industry standard at
the time. But, as the Navy has moved
forward, they have evaluated what
they need to hang onto as core business.” Starling added that HP has been
“working very hard to make sure they
have that level of visibility and flexibility that they need as opposed to the
early days when it was largely just a
delivered service.”
“The evolution of the network …
is moving towards industry best
practices, so we have government
roles and contractor roles clearly
defined.” –CAPT. MICHAEL ABREU, NAVY
ing as it goes.
Denby Starling, a retired Navy vice
admiral and HP vice president, said
his company has been working closely
with the Navy—through various contracts—on the network for nearly 15
years. “It’s a model that’s evolved just
like technology has evolved,” Starling
said. “Back in the early 2000s when
the Navy first decided to outsource its
‘back in business’ IT infrastructure,
STRENGTH IN CONTINUITY
Though it has not been without its challenges “as any large enterprise approach
can be,” Abreu said the NGEN contract
with HP is going well and that the program has made significant progress
since the transition from NMCI was
completed last September. Abreu said
he believes that the fact that HP was the
prime contractor for NMCI and is the
vendor for NGEN has enabled the Navy
to complete the transition sooner than
the service had planned.
“This is about the Navy having much
more insight end-to-end on the whole
network, from acquisition to engineering to operations,” said Starling. “We’ve
transitioned from a model where essentially HP did all of that on behalf of the
government to a model where HP does
all of that in response to the government. In the end, we have to have processes where we’re working side-by-side
with the government where things that
we just did for them in the past now in
most places actually there is a government overseer and/or decision maker
that gives the Navy a much better ability to operate and improve/modernize
their product.”
To successfully achieve operational
control across a large information
technology enterprise like NGEN, the
Navy turned to IT Service Management
(ITSM), a discipline for managing IT
systems based on industry best practices.
“What’s important about the new
model is that we’re working on it under an ITSM construct which we really
didn’t have in place fully prior to this,”
said Abreu. “The evolution of the net-
12 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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BY THE NUMBERS
700,000
Number of users on NMCI
$3.5billion
Size of the 2013 contract awarded to HP to
transition IT services from NMCI to NGEN
3months
The time by which the transition was
completed ahead of schedule
$20million
The amount the Navy says it is paying less per
month for services under NGEN
work and the management of the network is moving towards industry best
practices, so we have government roles
and contractor roles clearly defined and
we have processes that we’re putting in
place to manage the network in an effective way. We’re still learning in that
regard.”
According to Abreu, the Navy continues to implement a technology refresh
and modernization plan that “looks
across the network to optimize and upgrade the infrastructure equipment on a
regular basis.” Key near-term milestones
include transitioning to Microsoft’s
Windows 10 operating as well as testing
and certification of a new browser set.
“Upgrading to the next OS on the
network is a non-trivial affair for a large
number of users, as is ensuring that we
stay on pace with offering browsers that
allow applications to work effectively
and enable the Navy to leverage the
capabilities that the Internet brings,”
Abreu said.
STREAMLINING SERVICE
When it comes to mobility, NGEN is
migrating from BlackBerry to Apple
and Android mobile devices to better
reflect product offerings in the commercial market. Currently, 700 iPhones
are in use in the network with the ultimate goal of more than 25,000 authorized smartphone users deployed by the
end of the year.
Network and data center consolidation remain priorities for NGEN as
the service looks to gain efficiencies,
including planning how the Navy will
adopt cloud computing. Thirty-three
NMCI data centers are being consoli-
dated down to 15 data centers with the
ultimate goal of 10 data centers.
As far as Navy’s cloud strategy, it remains a work in progress with a number of cloud-based pilots underway.
“We need to do a business case analysis
to understand where we can gain value
add from the cloud,” said Abreu. “We
have a lot to learn here on that front to
understand what the cloud means to us
and whether or not those services will
be cost-effective, more secure, scalable,
and ensure that the user continues to
get what they need out of the network.”
Abreu said cybersecurity is the biggest challenge confronting NGEN. “Security is our top priority,” he said. “We
have to continue to improve our ability
to protect our systems, applications and
data. I’m not going to get into specifics
obviously, but we are continuing to put
tools and processes in place to achieve
that level of cybersecurity that our network operator needs to in order to defend the network properly.”
NGEN is aligning with DOD’s Joint
Regional Security Stacks (JRSS) effort to consolidate its security posture
across its infrastructure, giving adversaries less surface area to attack, and
will “start transition planning behind
that JRSS security boundary in FY18,”
said Abreu. “Of course, there’s a lot of
work that has to be done between now
and then to ensure that we understand
the capabilities that it will bring and to
make sure that we don’t do any harm
to our network, which we worked long
and hard to build defensive and internal
perimeters around to secure.”
“We’re continuously working on improving our cybersecurity posture, with
more than 15 projects underway this
year and more planned for next year,”
he concluded. “The threat continues to
evolve and we’ve got to do everything
we can to stay ahead of the threat. That’s
the only way we’re going to be able to
succeed in the long term when faced
with a variety of enemies that want to
get our data and disrupt our systems
and networks.” n
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CYBER WAR:
Can
deterrence
work?
As breaches mount, the military debates the
merits of a Cold War defense
BY MARK POMERLEAU
M
ilitary deterrence efforts are
as old as battle tactics. From
troop build-ups to increased
armaments to robust strategies on highly
advanced warfare such as nuclear arms,
military strategists and commanders have
intently studied the art of deterring adversaries.
But deterrence in cyberspace is a different game. With the proliferation of technology, the Internet and greater connectivity, malicious actors in cyberspace are
able to operate much more freely than in
the physical world. The number of cyberattacks on both government and commercial networks is growing, and established
practices for protecting those networks
could be falling short. Former director of
the National Security Agency Keith Alexander, in a keynote address earlier this
year at the American Enterprise Institute
said flatly, “I’d say our defense isn’t working.” Citing cyberattacks from Iran, China,
Russia and North Korea, Alexander told
the audience that “if everybody’s getting
hacked… industry and government… the
strategy that we’re working on is flawed.”
So is deterrence an option? Can the type
of military deterrence policies that have
worked in the physical world be applied
to cyberspace? It’s an issue military leaders
are starting to focus on.
As Scott Jasper, retired Navy captain and
a lecturer at the Center for Civil-Military
Relations and the National Security Affairs
Department at the Naval Postgraduate
School, wrote in a recent essay for Strategic Studies Quarterly (PDF), “The aim of
deterrence is to create disincentives for
hostile action and normally involves two
components: deterrence by punishment
(the threat of retaliation) and deterrence
“The U.S. is a glass
house when
it comes to cyber.”
— ERIC ROSENBACH, DOD CYBER
ADVISOR
by denial (the ability to prevent benefit).
Some notable scholars have suggested a
complementary third component: deterrence by entanglement (mutual interests)
that encourages responsible behavior of
actors based on economic and political
relationships.”
In an attempt to outline the Defense
Department’s framework and strategic
interests in cyber deterrence at a Senate
Armed Services Subcommittee hearing,
Eric Rosenbach, principal cyber advisor to
the Secretary of Defense, described deterrence policy as a “[w]hole-of-government
cyber strategy to deter attacks. This strategy depends on the totality of U.S. actions
to include declared deterrent policy, overall defensive posture, effective response
procedures, indication and warning capabilities, and the resilience of U.S. networks
and systems.”
In addition to DOD’s three missions for
cyberspace—defending DOD networks,
defending U.S. networks overall against
significant attacks and providing fullspectrum cyber support for military operations—Rosenbach outlined three roles
the Defense Department can play within
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A DOD graphic depicts integrated,
cyber, electronic and conventional
warfare.
state actors are can be deterred more than
others, while criminal, non-state actors
are the most difficult to deter, he said. “I
would say [adversaries] probably do view
it as low risk when it comes to exploitation
and trying to steal data,” Rosenbach said.
“I would say it’s considerably higher risk if
they were to conduct a destructive attack
against a DOD network – the deterrence
level there is much higher and I think they
see that as higher risk, which is what we
go for.”
“If everybody’s getting hacked…
the strategy that we’re working
on is flawed.”
–KEITH ALEXANDER, FORMER NSA DIRECTOR
the whole-of-government approach. “We
need to develop the capabilities to deny a
potential attack from achieving its desired
effect,” he said. “Second, the U.S. must
increase the cost of executing a cyberattack, and this is where DOD must be able
to provide the president with options to
respond to cyberattacks on the U.S., if required through cyber and other means…
And finally, we have to ensure that we are
resilient, so if there is an attack that we can
bounce back.”
STRIKING BACK?
Jasper in his essay noted that current
deterrence strategies, specifically those
involving retaliation, are compounded by
the fact that attributing a cyberattack to
its source is difficult given that Internet
routing can allow bad actors to conceal
their identity and give them plausible de-
niability. Rosenbach also addressed this
concern, saying that the government must
reduce anonymity in cyberspace so that
“adversaries who attack us don’t think that
they can get away with it.”
Given the anonymity in cyberspace,
typical military deterrence policies must
be tweaked and tailored to the specific
threat. For example, Rosenbach said, the
U.S. government’s response to a cyberattack might not be retaliation in the cyber realm. “[S]omething I would like to
emphasize is, although it’s a cyberattack,
we don’t think about the response purely
through cyber lens; it would be all the tools
of foreign policy and military options,” he
told lawmakers. One example is the economic sanctions imposed on North Korea
for the Sony hack.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of deterrence depends on the attacker. Certain
NO NUCLEAR OPTION
In terms of the overall efforts at of cyber
deterrence, Jasper wrote: “The concept
of deterrence is still hotly debated in the
cyber community, because, for instance,
traditional nuclear deterrence relies on
an adversary having knowledge of the
destruction that will result from transgressions, which is not possible in cyber because the secrecy of weapons is necessary
to preserve their effectiveness.”
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), during the
same subcommittee hearing where
Rosenbach spoke, suggested that kind
of Cold War approach, saying that cyber
threats to critical to critical infrastructure
could deter nation states, “just like the [intercontinental ballistic missiles] of years
ago – mutual assured destruction.” But
Rosenbach said that the notion of a comparable nuclear deterrent and cyber deterrent strategy is unfounded. “[T]he analogy
with nuclear part is not that strong,” he
said.
Rosenbach said the biggest challenge in
cyber deterrence and response efforts is a
balance between “making sure we deter
enough that the attack doesn’t come but
we don’t escalate things to the point that
bring more attacks upon ourselves,” he
stated. “The U.S. is a glass house when it
comes to cyber.” n
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UAS
&ROBOTICS
Air Force team develops
RPA collaboration system
The Web-bases SIRIS revamps the way crews work together
BY MARK POMERLEAU
A
group of resourceful Air Force
intelligence experts are being
recognized for taking existing
technology and developing a Web-based
system that makes collaboration on unmanned aircraft operations a lot easier for
air, ground and intelligence users.
The team will receive the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Achievement
Award for their work in developing the
Surveillance Intelligence Reconnaissance
Information System, or SIRIS. Requiring
only a Web browser and access to Google
Earth, SIRIS revamps the way in which
remotely piloted aircraft – the Air Force’s
preferred term for drones – crews share
information, including imagery, full-motion video, mission planning files, aircraft
locations, sensor points of interest, signals
intelligence and weather.
Young airman and pilots were restricted by existing platforms and technologies
because they “did not permit a shared
intelligence picture, limiting the ability to
collaborate with each other,” Col. Frances
Deutch, Ph.D., the Intelligence Innovation Programs director, said in an Air
Force news release.
“We chose a Web-based solution that
does not require a costly retrofit of the
platform, and we created rapid, sustainable innovations that were non-compartmentalized,” said Stephen Coffey, an RPA
subject matter expert at the Air Force’s ISR
Innovations Directorate.
Air Force researchers enhanced SIRIS’
capability by expanding its Internet Coordinate Extractor, or ICE, program, which
can monitor several chat rooms at once
and plots valuable information on Google
Earth for crews. This feature saves not
SIRIS was used to help
coordinate the response
to a 2013 wildfire at
Yosemite National Park.
only money but lives, Coffey said, because
“ICE allowed us to focus on Google Earth
in the moment, so instead of looking at six
computer displays, I’d look at one.” RPA
crews, with the advent of the ICE concept, could receive visual threat warnings
right on their map displays as opposed to
scouring chat rooms for intelligence – a
first of its kind occurrence.
Experts and researchers have larger
plans for RPAs other than providing ISR
(intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) and close air support, especially
as threat awareness and threat detection
continue to emerge in more sustainable
platforms. “We’re trying to get the user in
front of the technology, then they can tell
us in a more succinct and specific manner
what information they need,” Coffey said.
The SIRIS program was also used domestically to help first responders combat
forest fires in Yosemite National Park in
California, relaying images collected by
the California National Guard’s Predator
drones to local fire fighters. The SIRIS
program assisted in imagery, video and
collaboration with teams responding to
the incident.
Also worth noting, according to re-
ports by the Air Force Times, the initial
Air Force release indicated that this particular application was adjusted following
the shoot-down of a Predator belonging
to European Command in Syria as part
of Operation Inherent Resolve. The acknowledgement by the Air Force in the
release that the Predator was shot down in
the Syrian border town of Latakia, likely
by Syrian forces but it is still unclear, was
the first time the military publically stated
the aircraft was shot down. The Air Force
Times also discovered that following its
initial report, the Air Force actually removed language referencing the March
incident involving EUCOM’s Predator
drone.
“Applying technology without the skill
craft … had atrophied for us, since RPAs
had not been shot at for 20 years… Time
was not our friend in this particular case,
so it’s important that we had an early
adoption of the technology,” the report
quoted Coffey as saying in the initial Air
Force release. “The March shoot-down
was among the first times remotely piloted aircraft had been shot at,” the report
stated, relying again on Coffey’s comments in the initial release. n
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UAS
&ROBOTICS
Mabus: delays are holding back UCLASS
While Congress debates, the carrier-based drone program languishes
BY MARK POMERLEAU
N
avy Secretary Ray Mabus expressed frustration recently over
the delays with the Navy’s carrier-based unmanned aircraft program,
saying the debate over how the aircraft
will be used is hindering its development.
The Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS)
program, on which the Navy plans to
spend $3 billion by 2020, is being held up
by a debate with Congress over whether
its role would be primarily intelligence,
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) with limited strike capabilities, or primarily strike with limited ISR,
according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.
Some in Congress, such as Senate
Armed Services Chairman John McCain
(R-Ariz.), want to emphasize strike, while
the Navy has leaned toward ISR, with Mabus saying UCLASS is part of a more incremental approach toward autonomous
systems with deep strike capability.
Meanwhile, UCLASS’ development
languishes.
“We’ve had [a request for proposal]…
ready to go for a year and a half/two years
now, and it’s been held up because of a
look at overall ISR systems,” Mabus said
at an event at the American Enterprise
Institute. “I don’t know if the Navy sees
UCLASS as ISR … That’s certainly one
role, but it’s got a lot more roles … One of
the reasons we’d like to go ahead and get
the RFP out, is that we’d like to find out
what’s available out there in industry.”
Mabus said UCLASS would have strike
capabilities but operate in less contested
areas and would serve as a bridge to fully
autonomous systems capable of strike,
which he expects sometime in the 2020s.
GAO, in its report, said UCLASS currently stands to be ready for early operational
capacity in 2022, two years later than
planned. n
Navy Secretary
Ray Mabus
Next for the Air Force: Expendable drones?
BY DEFENSE SYSTEMS STAFF
T
he Air Force is looking to develop
low-cost UAS that could operate
in difficult environments and essentially be expendable. The service is
soliciting technology that would allow
for long-range, high-speed unmanned
aircraft with strike capability but with
a price tag lower than what it pays for
its current fleet. The solicitation says it
wants the UAS for operations “where
forward basing is difficult or prohibited.”
The Air Force notes that aircraft costs
are rising, driven by a focus on performance, reliability and durability. To date,
the military has acquired UAS—such as
the MQ-9 Reaper, which costs about $13
million each—with long lifecycles, just as
it does with manned aircraft. The service
wants to look into trading off some of
those attributes in favor of lowering the
cost, so that “loss of aircraft could be tolerated.” The Air Force suggests that low-
ering the bar on its usual requirements
could lead to innovations in design, and
allow for the use of commercial technologies and manufacturing techniques that
could cut costs.
At the moment, the Air Force said it is
willing to spend about $7.45 million for
a 30 month effort to “design, develop, assemble, and test a technical baseline for a
high speed, long range, low cost, limited
life strike UAS,” although the program is
flexible. n
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C4ISR
Vehicle-mounted Increment 2
equipment brings the network to
the company level.
Army taking tactical
network to the next stage
WIN-T Increment 2 is going to full-rate production
BY KEVIN McCANEY
T
he Army has received the goahead to take the second increment of its high-speed battlefield communications network into
full-rate production. The Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics issued a memorandum authorizing the next stages for
the Warfighter Information Network
– Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 2, contractor General Dynamics said.
WIN-T is the Army’s effort to
eventually extend a command-andcontrol view—including voice, data
and imagery—down to the squad level.
Increment 1 of WIN-T takes communications to the battalion level, in
at-the-halt environments such as a forward deployed base. Increment 2 puts
it on-the-go at the company level, with
equipment mounted on vehicles such
as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
vehicles, High Mobility Multi-purpose
Wheeled Vehicles and Strykers.
Increment 3, which will take highbandwidth communications further out
to soldiers the field while adding an air
tier, is being developed and tested under a $475 million contract awarded in
November 2013 to General Dynamics.
Currently, Increment 2 has been deployed at four division headquarters
and 12 brigade combat teams have.
General Dynamics said. It has been
used in Afghanistan to replace fixed
communications infrastructure that
was removed when U.S. forces closed
their bases there, and last year provided the communications backbone
in West Africa during the international
response to the Ebola epidemic.
WIN-T is a priority for the Army.
Despite an overall decline in recent
Defense Department spending, a DOD
report in March, which compared
spending between December 2013 and
December 2014, noted that the Army’s
spending on WIN-T had jumped by
36.2 percent.
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Working on expanding the tactical network also includes reducing
the complexity of network operations
and more nodes are added. And as the
Army eventually gets to Increment 3,
the equipment used for the first two
increments will stay in operation at
the battalion and company levels, re-
spectively. The Army recently awarded
General Dynamics a $36 million contract for maintenance and repair of
Increment 1 equipment. n
Device can track soldiers without GPS
WINS can locate a soldier on a map
when GPS signals are unavailable
BY KEVIN McCANEY
A
Or both. In 2011, Iranian engineers
jammed the GPS signal for an U.S. RQ170 Sentinel drone, then spoofed its coordinates to make it land in Iran instead
of its base in Afghanistan. University of
Texas students also have demonstrated
using spoofing to take control of unmanned aircraft and even an 80-foot
yacht.
rmy researchers are developing
a pocket-size device that will
give soldiers precise geolocation information even when GPS signals are unavailable.
The Warfighter Integrated Navigation
System (WINS), being developed at the
Communications Electronics
Research Development and Engineering Center, uses a variety
of sensors to track a soldier’s
movement from a last known
location, recording footsteps,
speed, time, altitude and other
factors to show the soldier’s location on a map.
“It’s got a number of inertial
sensors, such as a pedometer
and an accelerometer, things
you will find on your cell phone
but of a higher quality,” Osie
WINS, at center, uses inertial sensors to
David, a CERDEC researcher,
determine location.
said in a statement. “Even if the
enemy is denying you GPS or the terThe military doesn’t expect that it ever
rain is, you can still get known location will do without GPS—it’s still the most
on here so it will show up on your Nett accurate and far-reaching geolocation
Warrior device or your command and system ever created and likely will recontrol system.”
main so for the foreseeable future. But
Finding alternatives to GPS is a focus in addition to hardening GPS signals
for the Defense Department precisely against jamming and other electronic
for those times when Global Position- warfare attacks, researchers are working Systems signals don’t get through, ing on alternatives for those times when
whether because of terrain such as GPS service is blocked. The Defense
dense forests or jungles, or enemy in- Advanced Research Projects Agency, for
terference. GPS signals can be jammed example, has been developing chip-scale
even with low-powered devices or inertial measurement units that use
spoofed by stronger signals.
chip-scale atomic clocks for navigation.
U.K. researchers are working on a sensor
system that scans the environment and
cross-references that information with
a database of the terrain and structures
in an area. Maritime officials also are
considering an updated, digital version
of the Loran (Long Range Navigation)
system used to guide ships in World War
two but was eventually made obsolete by
GPS.
Like the DARPA and U.K.
projects, WINS would rely on
an initial GPS signal for a starting point, as well as for a corrective signal if it’s used for too
long, because its accuracy will
decrease over time. It will, however, display its error range so
the user knows when he or she
is looking at a rough estimate.
“It’s still better than having no
GPS at all,” David said.
Even if its accuracy is shortterm, WINS could provide a
vital link when necessary, such
as in a jungle, David said. “I’m navigating around and I lose the GPS because
with the triple-canopy jungle, the GPS
can’t penetrate that,” he said. “I don’t
know where I am on the map, so I’m in a
bad situation. If I want to know exactly
where I am so I can call for reinforcements or resupply, WINS is going to
give me my location on a map, no matter where I am.”
Although still in development, David
said he expects WINS or a subsequent
device built on WINS technology, will
someday be fielded. n
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 21
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CYBERDEFENSE
Army giving cyber warriors
a training range of their own
The Cyber Battle Ground will be open to all units later this year
BY MARK POMERLEAU
T
environments/configurations through
the cyber range and has incorporated
real world Cyber Actor/Cyber Threat
characterization, dynamic threat actor/
agent capability into training,” the release stated.
Several experts and military officials
have lauded the importance of additional training and greater “cyber hygiene” as a means of protecting against
threats and mounting a formidable
defense (which also translates into the
civilian government and commercial
realm as well).
“So when you look at cyber, where
are the weakest links in the chain across
our entire cyber domain?,” Adm. Paul
Zukunft, commandant of the Coast
Guard, said during a recent speech at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And that’s a bit challenging for us to be able to determine with
absolute certainty that we know where
every one of those weak links are. Recognizing that the biggest weak links are
the many operators that we have in that
cyber domain that don’t exercise good
cyber hygiene.”
According to the Defense Department’s most recent cyber strategy, released in April, the entire Cyber Mission Force eventually will comprise
he Army has been building up its
cyber workforce, but once those
soldiers are in the door they
still have to be trained. In order to help
speed up the process, the service’s Communications Electronic Command, or
CECOM, is launching a new training
range dedicated to cyber operations.
The Cyber Battle Ground is expected
to be open to all units in late 2015, the
Army said.
The range, whose creation was
prompted by a request from the 7th
Cyber Protection Brigade, or CPB,
will provide soldiers with a realistic environment for testing
skills learned and reinforced in
a classroom setting. “The range
is designed to reinforce learning
and build confidence in what
leadership acknowledges is an
agile skill set that will need to be
continuously honed in concert
with the ever-increasingly complex challenges of cybersecurity,”
said Michael Martinez, training
support division branch chief for
CECOM’s field support directorate. “To date, we’ve had at least
100 7th CPB soldiers take advantage of it.”
The cyber range is intended
to reduce the time and costs of
training cyber warriors, while
providing repeatable processes,
access to enterprise tools and
some services not available elseSoldiers at work in a cyber control center; the Army is hoping to train cyber
where. “CECOM can also develop
operators more quickly.
configurations to support multiple
22 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
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cyber operators organized into 133
teams with a variety of mission sets
and goals, such as Cyber Protection
Forces to augment traditional defensive measures and defend priority
DOD networks and systems, National
Mission Forces to defend the United
States and its interests against cyberattacks of significant consequence, and
Combat Mission Forces to support
combatant commands by generating
integrated cyberspace effects in support of operational plans and contingency operations to name a few.
CECOM, headquartered at Aberdeen
Proving Ground, Md., says its aim is to
“develop, provide, integrate and sustain
the logistics and readiness of C4ISR systems and mission command capabilities
for joint, interagency and multi-national forces worldwide.” n
Exercise tests a whole-of-nation approach
BY MARK POMERLEAU
T
wo key words in defining a unified national cyber defense are
“operational” and “interoperable.”
More than 100 organizations from government, academia, industry and the international community recently worked
on developing those aspects during the
fourth annual Cyber Guard exercise,
from June 8 to June 26. The large-scale
exercise focused on building a whole-ofnation approach to defending networks,
protecting infrastructure and sharing information across established lines.
“Cyber Guard is designed to exercise
the interface between the Department of
Defense — the active and Reserve and
Guard components — that are focused
on the cyber mission, and to partner
with other elements of the U.S. government as well as state and local authorities,” U.S. Cyber Command Commander
Navy Adm. Michael S. Rogers said in a
statement.
“The greatest challenge in this exercise
is, how do we build those partnerships
between organizations that don’t necessarily have a common background,
a common verbiage, a common set of
terms, so how are we going to harness
the power of governmental capacity to
include our own department in defending critical infrastructure in the private
sector of the United States,” Rogers said.
The exercise took place at a Joint Staff
J7 facility in Suffolk, Va., which was designed to support a wide range of military tests and exercises.
Participants included the Homeland
Security Department, FBI, Federal Aviation Administration, members of the U.S.
Cyber Command, Northern Command,
Strategic Command, National Guard
teams from 16 states, service component
commands from each branch’s cyber
teams, reserve personnel from Army,
Navy, Marines and Air Force, private
industry partners from the financial and
Service members and civilians take
part in Cyber Guard in Suffolk, Va.
energy sectors and three private industry
information sharing and analysis centers, among others.
Cyber Guard had three phases, each
covering numerous support exercises.
Phase 1 involved state and federal support
for private, municipal and state owned
critical infrastructure in accordance with
the National Response Framework — a
guide to how the nation responds to all
types of disasters and emergencies — as
well as defense support to civil authorities; Phase 2 tested defense support to
federal agencies, and Phase 3 focused on
training and certification of DOD cyber
teams and joint cyber headquarters elements the fact sheet stated.
Other scenarios included training
on the industrial control systems (ICS)
commonly found in critical infrastructure facilities, as well as hands-on
exercises in classified network environments similar to DOD and non-DOD
networks, with blue teams defending
friendly networks from simulated attacks from red teams.
The addition this year of the private
sector, coordinated with DHS, represents a shift from a whole-of-government approach to a whole-of-nation
approach to cybersecurity and response,
according to the fact sheet. That mirrors
legislation recently proposed in Congress to provide legal protections and
safeguards to members of the private
sector that share cyber threat information with the government — something
Rogers has said is the thing he wants
most from Congress. Some, however,
have been critical of such proposals as
“surveillance by another name.”
The renewed desire to partner with
the private sector comes from not only
an intelligence and situational awareness
perspective, but infrastructure ownership as well. “Most critical infrastructure
in the United States, particularly in the
information technology area, is owned
by the private sector,” said Coast Guard
Rear Adm. Kevin Lunday, U.S. Cyber
Command’s director of training and exercises. “So we rely on them, particularly
when we are responding to a major incident or attack on the private sector.” n
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BATTLESPACE
TECH
Study: DOD needs to field
laser weapons ASAP
Report also recommends abandoning piecemeal approach
BY GEORGE LEOPOLD
A
mong the emerging components of the Defense Innovation
Initiative launched late last year
is a concerted push to develop directedenergy weapons, including high-energy
lasers and high-power microwaves.
As a number of test platforms are
fielded, including land- and sea-based
platforms like the anti-drone laser the
Navy deployed in the Persian Gulf last
year, military planners are attempting
to move beyond high-profile failures of
the past, most notably high-energy lasers for missile defense.
According to a recent study on direct-energy weapons by the Center for
a New American Security, “despite resource levels that are inadequate to fully
exploit the potential of directed-energy
weapons, there is substantial and growing evidence that laser and microwave
weapon systems are finally coming of
age for battlefield use.”
One reason for optimism about integrating such weapons into ground,
air and naval forces is that current programs are more modest that the overly
ambitious “Star Wars” missile defense
efforts of the 1980s. The think tank concluded that directed energy programs
could be used in mission applications
ranging from defending ships and
bases against certain forms of attack to
combating identification and counterelectronic missions.
The Air Force has not ruled out laser weapons as a possible counterspace
weapon to defend its satellite constellations. Based on the fear of creating new
debris fields in space—space junk that
could knock out critical infrastructure
The Army’s High Energy Laser mobile demonstrator is moving into
live-fire tests.
on Earth—analysts think laser technologies that could blind but not destroy
satellites are a likely focus of Air Force
development.
Meanwhile, the pace of development
is quickening. For example, the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency
announced in May that the High-Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System
would move from laboratory development into Air Force field-testing. And
the Army’s High Energy Laser mobile
demonstrator is advancing to live-fire
tests.
The security study listed a number
of features that would speed the deployment of directed-energy weapons,
among the ability to operate at high- or
low-power output and at multiple frequencies. The authors also recommend
compact, energy-efficient systems with
modular designs that could be applies
to a variety of platforms.
Before such systems can be fielded,
the report argues, DOD needs a departmentwide strategic plan for directedenergy weapons. It noted that the Navy
has developed but not yet released a
directed-energy roadmap. Meanwhile,
Army and Air Force labs have demonstrated prototype capabilities. Those
efforts must be merged, the study recommended: “DOD must develop and
promulgate cross-service approaches
to [directed-energy] weapons development.”
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E
CH
The report also recommends that
DOD replace its current “laissez-faire
developmental approach” in which
“communities of interest” within the
Office of the Secretary of Defense pur-
sue directed-energy development on a
piecemeal basis.
Along with funding development,
a directed energy effort should target
“low-hanging fruit” to get demonstra-
tion projects into the field as quickly
as possible. The Navy’s Laser Weapon
System deployed aboard the USS Ponce
last year is “at the head of the queue,” the
study noted. n
The elements of the next-generation
command post
It will be a lot easier to set up and tear down
BY KEVIN McCANEY
missions are paramount, until a collab- such as call managers and security and
n Army command post is a orative effort produced secure 4G LTE/ bandwidth management tools.
lot like a data center—a cen- Wi-Fi for use in the field. The National
A microgrid power generation systral hub for the information, Security Agency, Special Operations tem called Intelligent Power also manimages and communications that go Command, Joint Staff and Nett Warrior ages power use, preventing overloads
into military operations. And like data program office worked to develop and through rebalancing and has cut fuel
centers, they can be unwieldy, cluttered implement an NSA encryption system, consumption by 25 to 40 percent and
with all kinds of hardware, the transit called Commercial Solutions for Classi- the number of required generators from
cases, wires, cables and more
18 to four. The Army also has
wires and cables.
adapted the transmissions in
For a mobile Army that
some of its vehicles so that
is steadily pushing its comthey could produce enough
mand-and-control
view
electrical power for use within
out to soldiers in the field,
a vehicle or even a small commanaging a command post,
mand post.
which could take a platoon
of soldiers a whole day to set
THE WORLD WIDE WEB
up, could be a drag on operaThe Army is ready to deploy
tions. But that is changing, as
the Web-based Command
new technologies and a betPost Computing Environter acquisition approach help
ment, or CP CE, which will
create a lighter, faster and
eliminate the multiple workSecure wireless and a Web-based environment will
more efficient central hub.
stations that had them swivelsimplify command posts.
The Army recently detailed
ing and rolling from point to
how it’s increasing command post ca- fied. Adding what the Army only called point in a chair, pulling data from one
pabilities while reducing SWaP (size, a “special sauce” made it fit for use on system and manually entering it into
weight and power) requirements, in military networks.
another.
many ways with technologies that are
Not only does it get rid of wires, it
CP CE provides an integrated envifamiliar to everyday users on the street. also frees commanders and staff from ronment designed to let commanders
The future command post will be light- their workstations, allowing them to and soldiers use one system to share
er to ship, more quickly set up and torn work with classified information from data, imagery and warfighting services
down, and more efficient to use. Here smartphones and tablets without the ranging from logistics, intelligence and
are the basic elements.
extra baggage of encryption hardware.
airspace management to fires and maneuvers. The system, Version 1 of which
SECURE WIRELESS
SWAPING OUT
is ready for fielding, will simplify the
If you want to unclutter a workspace, One of the key technologies the Army is computing backend and give users one
one of the first things to do is get rid of using to lighten the command post load system to start up rather than many. It
wires. That was easier said than done is virtualization. Virtualizing applica- also means that soldiers will only have
for the Army, for whom secure trans- tions eliminates hardware appliances to train on one system. n
A
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 25
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7/7/15 9:22 AM
IT
DISA’s 5-year plan stresses
joint environment, cyber operations
Strategy also calls for supporting anytime/anywhere access
BY DEFENSE SYSTEMS STAFF
T
he Defense Information Systems
Agency has released a new fiveyear strategic plan that focuses
on supporting the Pentagon’s Joint Information Environment and cyberspace
operations while cutting back on duplicative systems.
The plan for 2015-2020, released
June 16, also calls for streamlining its
networks, taking advantage of commercial technology and supporting mobile
computing to guarantee authorized
personnel anytime/anywhere access to
Defense Department networks.
Release of the document is likely the
last major act of DISA Director Lt. Gen.
Ronnie Hawkins, who is set to step
down and be replaced by DISA’s Vice
Director Maj. Gen. Alan Lynn.
In the plan, Hawkins, who has been
DISA’s director since 2012, said DISA
will “be aggressive in our pursuit of efficiency and effectiveness, and no longer
support the operations of legacy and
costly applications without senior leadership’s approval and direction.”
Among the goals laid out in the plan
is development of the Joint Information
Headquarters for DOD Information
Networks, a new office set up earlier
this year that also falls under the purview of the DISA director. The JIE, an
integrated architecture intended to accommodate all of the military services
as well as other DOD components and
coalition partners, “remains the cornerstone of the Department’s future,”
the plan states. DISA, as one of its key
goals, plans to continue to deploy the
Joint Regional Security Stacks that
serve as the cybersecurity foundation
of JIE.
Along those lines, the plan also puts
a heavy focus on cybersecurity. “We are
first and foremost” DOD’s cyberspace
IT combat support agency, Hawkins
writes. DISA will continue to support
development of the cyber workforce,
while working with the Intelligence
Community and industry in developing
countermeasures to the range of threats.
A key to DOD’s networking plans and
anytime/anywhere access is cloud computing. The plan says that both internal
and commercials clouds will be part of
a “global elastic infrastructure” that will
also incorporate collaboration tools and
mobile computing. n
It lives! Navy still paying for XP support
BY DEFENSE SYSTEMS STAFF
T
he Navy may have removed Windows XP from the Navy-Marine
Corps Intranet, but obviously
that doesn’t mean there aren’t still pockets of XP around the service.
And some pretty big pockets at that,
as the Space and Naval Warfare Systems
Command recently awarded Microsoft
a $9.1 million contract to continue the
company’s Premier and Custom support
services for 100,000 workstations still
running XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2003
and Server 2003. The contract is for services through July 12, 2016, but includes
options that, if exercised, would continue support until June 2017 and bring the
total tab to $30.8 million.
Microsoft quit selling XP in 2010 and
ended its regular, free support for XP
and the 2003 iterations of Office and
Exchange in April 2014, as it encouraged users and organizations to move to
newer versions. Support for Server 2003
is due to end July 14. But the company
does offer continued support—which
includes security and other upgrades—
for a price, and XP still has plenty of
users.
Earlier this year, Net Applications
said XP, the first version of which was
released August 2001, still accounts for
almost 17 percent of desktop operating
systems worldwide. Another website
analyst, StatCounter, said the number
was more like 11 percent. Either way,
that covers a lot of computers, including,
for example, about 10,000 at the Labor
Department, some 35 percent of users at
the British National Health Services—
and 100,000 workstations in the Navy.
The Navy began moving away from
XP in 2013 and plans eventually to
adopt Windows 10, which is set to be
released July 29. In the meantime, it has
to provide protections for systems that
haven’t been upgraded, hence the deal
with Microsoft. On the bright side, $9.1
million for 100,000 computers works
out to $91 per machine, which at least
costs less than a new OS for each one. n
26 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_026-027.indd 26
7/7/15 9:26 AM
Analysts: space risk is growing
Debate rages over how to best protect satellite systems
BY GEORGE LEOPOLD
A
Department in 2014 by the Eisenhower
Center for Space and Defense Studies outlined a series of escalating steps
aimed at blunting asymmetric attacks
on U.S. space assets.
The proposed layered defenses include: diplomacy and enforcement of
international norms; military and commercial alliances; resilience, or demonstrating the ability to withstand a space
attack; and, finally, retaliation.
Retaliation would include a “demonstrated ability of the United States
to deliver unacceptable damage even if
confronted with a broad spectrum of
debate is raging among U.S.
policy wonks over how best to
prevent a “space Pearl Harbor.”
Those concerns have grown in recent
years with light-saber-rattling between
the U.S. and China over a debris-generating Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) test
in 2007, along with growing tensions
between Moscow and Washington.
Some even worry that increased “counterspace testing” in the form of kinetic
ASAT tests, jamming and the use of
lasers to blind satellite optics could
eventually leave low Earth orbit unusable.
The U.S. National Security Space
Strategy highlights the fact that
“space is increasingly congested.
Growing global space activity and
testing of China’s destructive antisatellite system have increased congestion in important areas in space.
“
The debate over space deterrence
is playing out in space policy journals in which analysts have argued
back and forth over whether the
current U.S military space strategy
requires an overhaul. Meanwhile,
experts are fearful that U.S. space
assets like military communications
satellites are especially vulnerable
to asymmetric warfare. Indeed, the
U.S. military is far more reliant on
space systems than Russia or China,
a reality some policy makers assert
China is attempting to exploit.
As U.S. counterspace strategy
evolves, experts are debating whether traditional space deterrence
should evolve along with growing
threats. Proposed revisions to the
U.S military space strategy have
argued for a layered approach to Analysts stress the need to protect
deterring space attacks. Recommen- satellites such as the Wideband Global
dations submitted to the Defense SATCOM spacecraft.
attacks against its space assets as well
as those available to its allies and the
commercial sector,” Ambassador Roger
G. Harrison and retired Lt. Col. Deron
Jackson of the Eisenhower Center wrote
in the journal The Space Review. Harrison and Jackson, respectively the
former and current directors of the
Eisenhower Center, were responding to
criticism of the think tank’s space deterrence proposals.
Christopher Stone, a space policy
analyst, argued that the layered defense approach leaves U.S. space assets
vulnerable in an asymmetric conflict.
China followed its 2007 test with
additional kinetic ASAT tests along
with “lasing of satellites and an apparent new norm of nation-state
behavior in space via the tripling of
reversible counterspace attacks such
as jamming and other means of interference,” Stone asserted.
In response, Harrison and Jackson acknowledged: “An enemy that
can put the United States off balance
through an attack on space systems, but is not equally dependent
on space systems to coordinate its
own military operations, will be on
its way to victory while American
strategists are looking to assess the
effects of retaliation against the enemy’s space assets.”
Stone argues that military planners must design “future architectures and strategies for space security so that we are better able to
tailor our deterrence strategy to the
adversaries we might face, and are
already facing….”
To some extent, the Air Force
has begun doing just that with the
planned launched of maneuverable
communications satellites and increased testing of laser weapons that
could be used as part of an overall
counterspace strategy. n
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 27
0815ds_026-027.indd 27
7/9/15 4:48 PM
MOBILE
High-bandwidth battlefield radio
doesn’t need satellites
Vehicle-mounted system a ‘game changer’ for tactical comm
BY MARK POMERLEAU
T
he Army has developed a
method for improved battlefield
communication without the
need for satellites. Vehicle-mounted,
high-bandwidth networking radios
that use line-of-sight communication
waveforms link soldiers at the company level with battalion and brigade
commands, providing ground-level
connectivity.
Mid-tier networking vehicular radios, or MNVRs, allow for rapid exchange of voice messages, images and
video with commanders.
“MNVR meets the need of getting
data down to the soldiers,” Lt. Col.
Stephen Dail, communications officer
for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st
Armored Division, said in an Army announcement. “The fact that you have
the ability to push data back out from
locations in the field and graphically
get that information back to higher
headquarters—who has the expertise
to examine it and potentially get information back to the Soldiers while
they’re still on the ground so they can
react—is a game changer.”
The MNVR underwent limited user
tests at the recent Network Integration Evaluation to ensure it is ready to
be deployed as part of the Army’s next
network capability set. MNVR testing at NIE involved mounting it onto
Strykers, Mine-Resistant, AmbushProtected vehicles and High-Mobility,
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, the
Army said.
The Army wants to ensure that the
MNVR is capable of handling a wide
range of environments. “We are currently completing a tropic field experiment in Panama, where the radios will
be subjected to high temperatures,
humidity and fungus to see how well
they perform in these conditions,” said
Eric Goodman, product manager for
MNVR. “While this is not a pass-fail
event, we will use the information to set
a base line for future evaluations.”
One of the draws for the MNVR is its
independence from satellites to provide
ground-level connectivity. The system
uses Wideband Networking Waveform
and Soldier Radio Waveform operating
as a node to hop from one MNVR to
another until it reaches its destination
the Army release stated.
“By using these waveforms to link
lower-echelon digital radios, like the
Rifleman and Manpack, to Warfighter
Information Network-Tactical, also
known as WIN-T, the MNVR provides
a significant tactical advantage for Soldiers. Since the MNVR is integrated
into Army tactical vehicles, it ensures
wireless communications and networking services for both mobile and stationery forces,” according to the release.
Additional testing measured the
MNVR’s ability to integrate with other
communication systems and radios
such as the WIN-T. n
A soldier operates the MNVR during a test at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
28 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_028-030.indd 28
7/7/15 9:30 AM
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MOBILE
DISA releases a heavy-duty suite
for mobile classified communications
Kit will allow secure voice, video and data access to SIPRNet
BY KEVIN McCANEY
D
efense Department users will
now have mobile access to
classified voice, video and data
communications from any Internet connection, even if that level of security
does require carrying some extra weight.
The Defense Information Systems
Agency has made the DOD Enterprise
Classified Travel Kit Gateway (DECTKGW), previously available to only a few
users, available throughout the department, DISA said in an announcement.
High-level officials, of course, will be the
most likely users.
The gateway enables a virtual private
network connection to DOD’s Secret
IP Router Network and allows users
to make classified voice calls through
DISA’s Enterprise Classified Voice over
IP service.
What makes it all work is a support
kit, which is where the weight comes
in. Two kits currently are approved: the
18-pound Executive Voice Kit, which
lets users make classified calls or access the SIPRNet; and the 12-pound
Executive Communications Kit, which
enables concurrent classified voice and
data use. A third kit undergoing testing is the Secure Flyaway Kit, which
will allow concurrent voice, video, and
data use and will check in at 19 pounds.
DISA expects it to be approved by fourth
quarter of this fiscal year.
All of the kits use High Assurance IP
Encryptor (HAIPE) devices, which are
Type 1 encryption devices that comply
with National Security Agency specifications. With a kit, a user can connect
to DECTK infrastructure, hosted at the
Defense Enterprise Computing Center,
via a hard Ethernet connection, the kit’s
built-in wireless broadband router or a
USB modem air card. The user would
then use a crypto ignition key and a
username and password for voice service, or a SIPRNet hard token for data
access.
The DECTK-GW kits will replace
the Executive Voice Kits developed and
managed by the Joint Communications
Support Element at MacDill Air Force
Base, Fla. Those voice-only kits—whose
creation was prompted by a failed 2012
phone call between President Obama,
then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey—have
been used by senior leaders and to support communications during relief efforts such as those following Typhoon
Haiyan in the Philippines.
DISA said it will first transition JSCE
users to the new infrastructure and then
begin taking on new customers. n
Navy awards $479M deal
for joint tactical radios
BY DEFENSE SYSTEMS STAFF
T
he Navy has awarded ViaSat a
contract potentially worth $478.8
million for Link 16 radios that
allow joint forces’ aircraft, ships and
ground forces to share tactical information—whether data, images or digital
voice—in near-real time.
The five-year contract, awarded by the
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego, calls for the production, development and sustainment of the
software-defined Multifunctional Infor-
mation Distribution System Joint Tactical
Radio Systems (MIDS JTRS) terminals.
The MIDS JTRS terminal (PDF),
which is upgrading the MIDS-LVT terminal, is a four-channel jam-resistant
radio with three other channels for future growth and includes advanced networking waveforms such as the Tactical
Targeting Network Technology, a lowlatency technology used in ad hoc networks at the tactical edge. It makes use
of Link 16, a National Security Agencycertified tactical data exchange network.
High-speed and jam-resistant, Link 16
allows long-range, line-of-sight communications among U.S., NATO and other
approved forces.
The radios will support communications for the Navy, other U.S. military
forces and coalition partners. In making the contract award, SPAWAR said
99 percent of the radios would go to the
Navy and “possibly” other U.S. services,
with the remaining 1 percent being available to as many as two dozen other countries and NATO. n
30 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_028-030.indd 30
7/7/15 9:30 AM
DEFENSESYSTEMS
K N O W L E D G E T E C H N O L O G I E S A N D N E T- E N A B L E D W A R F A R E
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MOBILE
Now, even small drones can serve
as secure communications nodes
Harris developed the Small Secure Data Link in 90 days
BY KEVIN McCANEY
T
he Marine Corps has tested
expanding its battlefield communications with a small,
lightweight device that fits onto an
unmanned RQ-11 Raven’s nose and
extends secure communications well
beyond line of sight for Marines in the
field.
The Small Secure Data Link (SSDL),
made by Harris Corp., is a wideband
networking radio that, during the tests
earlier this year during the Marines’
Talon Reach exercises in California,
acted as a replay node for soldiers
down to the squad level, according to
an announcement from the company.
And at 25 cubic centimeters (3 inches
by 5.3 inches by 1.6 inches) and a
weight of 18 ounces, it’s the smallest,
lightest and lowest-power VHF/UHF
software-defined radio certified for Secret and lower classifications.
Talon Reach was the first time the
Marines had tested SSDL, which is
based on Harris’ handheld Falcon III
AN/PRC-152A radio, which the Marines, other services and Special Forces
have been using for years, including as
part of the Joint Tactical Radio System
program.
Harris is making use of technology
developed for other unmanned systems, such as the RQ-21A Blackjack,
and applying it to the Raven, giving
Marines long-range communications
unencumbered by obstructions on the
ground, Ed Zoiss, vice president and
general manager for Defense Programs
in Harris Government Communications Systems, said in a statement.
Serving as communications relays
has been one of the primary functions
of UAS over the years, in addition to
their ISR (intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance) duties. But it’s mainly
been the province of large drones like
the Air Force’s Global Hawk or even
mid-size systems like the catapult-
launched Blackjack.
Size, weight and power (SWaP) requirements for radios have put limits
on what could be done with smaller
drones like the hand-launched Raven.
At 3 feet long with a 4.5-fopot wingspan and weighing 4.2 pounds, it’s not
made to carry much of a payload other
than its ISR cameras. It has, however,
proved to be a popular tool with the
Marines, Army and Air Force. The Marines, in fact, last year made training
on the Raven part of the basic training
for new officers.
Harris, building on existing technologies, was able to come up with a
nose-cone design light enough for the
Raven, as part of a process that took
only 90 days, the company said. With
a range of 6.2 miles at altitudes up to
500 feet, and flight durations of 60 to
90 minutes, the Raven can now help
forces get around some of the limits of
communications in contested environments. n
A Marine launches a Raven UAS.
32 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_028-032.indd 32
7/8/15 2:28 PM
INDEX OF ADVERTISERS
Adobe Systems Inc
www.adobe.com/government . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Defense Systems Tablet
Defense Systems Tablet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Enterprise Architecture East
www.GovEAconference.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Face-to-Face Event Series
www.DefenseSystems.com/events . . . . . . . . 17
Geico
www.geico.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
TechMentor
www.techmentorevents.com/redmond . . . . . 29
Visual Studios Live - New York
www.vslive.com/newyork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
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DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 33
0815ds_033.indd 33
7/10/15 10:40 AM
COMMENT
To move forward, the Army
must leave the past behind
A successful modernization involves new, lightweight tech
BY JOEL DOLISY
N
ot to be outdone in the race for
federal network modernization, the Army earlier this year
issued the Army Network Campaign
Plan (ANCP). Created by Lt. Gen. Robert Ferrell, the Army’s CIO, the ANCP
“outlines current efforts that posture
the Army for success in a cloud-based
world” and provides “the vision and direction that set conditions for and lay a
path to Network 2020 and
beyond.”
These broad and bold
statements encompass several things. First, there’s
the Army’s desire to create
a network that aligns with
DISA’s Joint Information
Environment (JIE) and the
Defense Department’s modernization
goals, which include better insight into
what’s happening within its networks
and tighter security postures. Second,
there’s the pressing need to vastly improve the services the Army is able to
deliver to personnel, including, as outlined in the ANCP, everything from
“lighter, more mobile command posts
to austere environments that will securely connect the network and access
information.”
There’s also the desire to simply
streamline operations and reduce costs.
Every federal IT manager’s budget is
under a microscope, and it’s no longer
feasible to have different teams working
on overlapping or redundant tasks.
Beyond the fact that this approach
inhibits operational efficiency, it also
impacts costs; defense agencies literally
can no longer afford to purchase separate solutions for security and operations teams. Today, they need a single
solution with dual use that can handle
both operational and security requirements.
A FIT FOR THE ANCP
The need for greater agility outlined in
the ANCP dictates that operations and
security teams become more integrated
and unified. The responsibilities of one
tions and it requires letting go of past
methodologies. The same mindset that
contributes to that effort should also
be applied to the types of solutions the
Army uses moving forward, because the
ANCP will not be successful if there is
a continued dependence on legacy IT
solutions.
It used to be fine for defense agencies
to throw their lots in with one software
behemoth controlling large segments
of their entire IT infrastructure, but
those days of expensive, proprietary solutions are over. Army
IT professionals are no longer
beholden to the technologies
that may have served them very
well for the past few decades,
because the commercial market
for IT management tools now
has lightweight, affordable and
easy-to-deploy solutions.
The willingness to let go of the past is
the evolution of federal IT, and is at the
heart of all modernization efforts. Managers must not fall into the problem that
a recent Solar Winds survey unveiled,
which is that a significant number of
federal IT professionals view their CIOs
as barriers to adopting new technology.
The fact that Ferrell and his team
developed a plan as overarching as the
ANCP indicates they are not among this
group of CIOs. In fact, the plan itself
shows vision and a great desire to help
the Army “be all it can be.” Now, the
organization just needs to fully embrace
new methodologies and technologies to
reach that goal. n
The willingness to
let go of the past
is the evolution of
federal IT.
can have a great impact on the other.
For example, a network manager will
have a good grasp of the types of devices
that are impacting network traffic, and
those devices—laptops, tablets, mobile
technologies, and more—could have a
direct effect on network security. Working together, cybersecurity and operations teams can share common intelligence that can help them more quickly
respond to threats and other network
problems.
Similarly, many of today’s network
monitoring tools not only report on the
overall performance of the network, but
also provide indications of potential security threats and remediation options.
A CRITICAL STEP
Combing operations and security teams
is a new concept for many organiza-
Joel Dolisy is the CIO and CTO at SolarWinds.
34 JULY/AUGUST 2015 | DefenseSystems.com
0815ds_034.indd 34
7/6/15 3:28 PM
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Defense National Security Solutions
Transforming digital experiences for mission success.
Defense National Security Solutions
Transforming digital experiences for mission success.
Adobe is the global leader in digital content solutions. The U.S. Department of Defense
leverages Adobe tools and services to create ground-breaking digital content, deploy it
across media and devices, measure and optimize it over time, and achieve greater mission
success. Defense solutions from Adobe are a Joint Information Environment (JIE) standard*
Adobe
Advantage
Research Voice
of the Customer
Award.
to make, manage, mobilize, secure, and measure mission-critical digital content. } 2011 Forrester The
U.S. defense agencies achieve greater mission success and efficiency with Adobe.
BENEFITS
Adobe is the global leader in digital content solutions. The U.S. Department of Defense leverages Adobe
tools and services to create ground-breaking digital content, deploy it across media and devices, measure
and optimize it over time, and achieve greater mission success. Defense solutions from Adobe are a Joint
The Adobe Advantage
Information Environment (JIE) standard* to make, manage, mobilize, secure, and measure mission-critical
digital content. U.S. defense agencies achieve greater mission success and efficiency with Adobe.
} U.S. Department of Defense Enterprise Standard
} Joint Enterprise License Agreement (JELA)
available
} Best-in-breed and award-winning solutions
} Extensive federal and commercial
user adoption
} Open standards-based solutions
DEFENSE
SECURITY
PROGRAMS
Defense NATIONAL
National Security
Programs
} Interoperability between enterprise
and tactical networks
} Easy-to-use, simple-to-deploy
STANDARDS & CERTIFICATIONS*
Defense Imagery &
Video Processing
Cybersecurity &
Continuous Monitoring
Public Affairs &
Engagement
Training &
Simulation
} Section 508 Compliance, WCAG 2.0
} PDF ISO 32000
} PL3 Accreditation
} FIPS 140-2 Crypto (AES 256) PKI, CAC, PIV
} SCORM, AICC, and Tin Can compliance
Digital Recruiting &
Human Resources
Mobile Applications &
Mission Planning
Contracts &
Procurement
Digital
Publications
} XFA, XML, and S1000 XML compliance
} Mobile accessibility/MACE
} HTML5
} FISMA ISO 27001 SAS 70/II
* Not all standards apply to all Adobe products.
www.adobe.com/government
/AdobeGov
ADO_Ad_DigGov_DoD_GovLoopGuide_8.5x11.indd 1
@AdobeGov
* Not all standards apply to all Adobe products.
Adobe and the Adobe logo logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated
in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. 5/15
5/26/15 11:18 AM
